Draco Malfoy and The Forbidden Forest
by iamtheoutlaw
Summary: Draco goes to Hogwarts.
1. Three Slytherins

This story will always be updated on ao3 ( **i_amtheoutlaw** ) first and here second. I will update weekly.

betas are both amazing and can be caught here: **mirandasprinkle** and **moonshoespotterr.** I seriously couldn't have finished this without them!

disclaimer - I literally own very little of these ideas. Most of this is straight J.K. Rowling. Almost all of the characters - hers. Some of the words - hers. Most of the ideas - hers. I literally just have an obsession with Draco Malfoy - not Tom Felton - and I had to. Some of this also belongs to the BBC Merlin though I can't say which parts without spoiling things.

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Draco Malfoy has played a sport while flying on a broomstick. He's dreamed of wearing a cloak of invisibility, always sneered at giants, and seen many different kinds of dragons. All Draco knows is a wonderful life with his parents, who are the best, most magical parents anyone could have. Draco lives in a ginormous manor with lots of room to fly and play in, and he has the most spectacular party on his birthday every year.

But all that is about to change when Draco starts school at Hogwarts: a horrible place out of his worst nightmare. There he learns not only jealousy, loneliness, and what it means to be rejected, but that he has the worst destiny ever waiting on him . . . unless Draco can find a way to beat the inevitable.

* * *

Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy, of Malfoy Manor, the only residents on Old Wizarding Road, were proud to say that they were perfectly abnormal, thank you very much. They were the first people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they were the heart of such absurdities.

Mr. Malfoy worked at the Ministry of Magic, which ministered all things magical, of course. It was a place many of his ancestors had worked before him. Mr. Malfoy was a tall, thin wizard with a pointy chin and long blond hair. Mrs. Malfoy was just as tall a witch, but thinner and had blonde hair that fell even further down her back than her husband, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time brushing it and pinning it in complicated patterns on top of her head. The Malfoys had a son named Draco and, in their opinion, there wasn't a finer boy anywhere.

The Malfoys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that someone would discover it. They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters. Mr. Potter was Mrs. Malfoy's best friend when they were very little, but they hadn't been able to say that in years; in fact, Mrs. Malfoy pretended that she didn't have a best friend, because her best friend and his good-for-nothing wife were about as un-Malfoyish as it was possible to be. The Malfoys shuddered to think what anyone would say if the Potters arrived on Old Wizarding Road. The Malfoys knew that the Potters had a small son, too. This boy was the only reason the Malfoys were in contact with the Potters again.

When Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy woke up on the dull, grey Monday our story starts, there was _everything_ about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr. Malfoy scowled as he picked out his blackest robe for work, and Mrs. Malfoy cursed away silently as she wrestled a screaming Draco into his floating high chair.

All of them noticed a large eagle owl flutter past the window.

At half past eight, Mr. Malfoy shrank his briefcase and tucked it inside his robes, pecked Mrs. Malfoy on the cheek, and tried to kiss Draco goodbye but missed, because Draco was now having a tantrum and throwing his breakfast back at a cowering house elf's head.

"Little Black," chuckled Mr. Malfoy as he disappeared from Malfoy Manor with a well-mannered crack.

It was on the street corner that he next saw something habitual to him - a crow perched on a sign. For a long moment Mr. Malfoy eyed the creature, but then his face gave way to a devilish smirk. The crow glared back at him. Mr. Malfoy's smirk only grew wider. As Mr. Malfoy began to walk up the road he glanced back one time only to find the crow gone. He had no worries, he knew the bird wouldn't fly too far away today, of all days. As he headed into the thick of the square, Mr. Malfoy thought only of a signature he needed to acquire by later this evening.

On the edge of town, the signature was driven out of his mind by something else. As he set about nabbing a _Prophet_ and every other wizarding newspaper, journal, or magazine from each stand he passed, Mr. Malfoy saw a sight that made him cringe. A young wizard dressed in some sort of muggle pants. He was sure that the boy's father was a pureblood, too. Mr. Malfoy couldn't believe the nerve of some wizards these days. It was sights like this that made Mr. Malfoy want to do things that would land him with a life sentence in Azkaban. He was at the nearest floo point then, and in the next second was strolling into the Ministry with his papers tucked under his arm.

Mr. Malfoy always sat with his back to the window, but never failed to hear the swoop of an owl. He had letters and documents coming in and out all day, but his mind was fixed on his task of getting that one signature. Still, he went about his normal day. He yelled at a few people. He made all six of his floo appointments and shouted some more. He was in a very bad mood until lunchtime, when he heard a familiar rap-tap-tapping on his window. Mr. Malfoy smirked softly as he packed up his papers, shrank his case once more, and made his way out of the Ministry by foot until he could apparate.

He arrived to meet Severus Snape at their usual spot and quickly noticed the other man lurking off to the right. It was hard to miss all that blackness flowing in the wind. Why such a plain, pale man chose to drape himself in such horribly plain clothes always confused Mr. Malfoy. If the man was going to slouch and sneer like he'd been picked on most of his life then he could at least dress in a manner more befitting a wizard of his station. Though Severus Snape had always asked to be picked on, Mr. Malfoy thought; not that Mr. Malfoy himself had ever done any of this picking on . . . much.

The salty air met Mr. Malfoy's nose as he greeted the other man, his friend, with a raised eyebrow. His wife, for some reason, seemed to trust Severus Snape and all his blackness that flowed in the wind, but Mr. Malfoy could never fully bring himself to.

"He has found them," said Severus Snape, his voice cracking on the last syllable. He wouldn't meet Mr. Malfoy's gaze.

Mr. Malfoy's other eyebrow met his already raised one in the middle of his forehead. "Finally. I was beginning to think that the Dark Lord had lost his touch before the show had even started," drawled Mr. Malfoy, knowing this was somehow hard for Severus Snape, but not wanting to make a thing out of it. The possible loss of a blood traitor, his mudblood wife, and his half blood spawn were nothing for a Malfoy to show emotion over. When Severus Snape didn't reply, Mr. Malfoy added as gently as he could, "you knew this was coming. You were in on it the whole time, Severus."

"This was not what I wanted," snapped Severus Snape, and when he finally looked up, Mr. Malfoy saw that the man's eyes were red-rimmed. "Narcissa was supposed to-"

"My wife has already worked wonders here," reminded Mr. Malfoy carefully, fighting against his urge to sigh. "Do not disrespect her by demanding she should have worked miracles as well. Not even the Gods themselves could have dragged those Gryffindors away from their baby and you know it. You even managed to mess everything up by going to Dumbledore, the old fool, and even he wasn't able to protect them it seems. Or did you really think that Lily Potter would reason with Narcissa? Of _all_ the people in the Wizarding World? We had a better chance of saving James than Lily with this plan, even you had to see that. And as for how this whole endeavor started, did you really believe that the Dark Lord would go after the Longbottom child? Really? You . . . the Half-Blood Prince?"

Mr. Malfoy really hadn't meant to spit the words.

Severus Snape opened his mouth but nothing came out for a moment. He closed it, and opened it once again to speak. "Narcissa said-"

"And that's your problem right there." Mr. Malfoy stopped the man before he could go any further. "You spend all your time chasing around after Gryffindors and you never learn how to keep up with us Slytherins."

Severus Snape growled at him.

"Case in point," Mr. Malfoy supplied easily, with only a small chuckle.

"Fuck off, Lucius." Severus Snape rolled his eyes and sighed, finally looking a bit resigned to his fate. "I'm just not a heartless beast like your wife."

"I'll be showing her this memory later, I hope you know that."

"Bastard."

"I thank you for your gracious, but untrue words. Now . . . you know what you have to do, no matter what happens?" asked Lucius Malfoy, for literally the hundredth time. "Whether we get the bloody child? Defy the Dark Lord? Save the Potters? _Both_ of them? Just bloody James? Pull off any of this insane plan that my wife has dragged us into?"

"Yes," Severus Snape hissed and was gone with an angry crack. He always was a poor sport.

Lucius sighed, brushed some invisible dust off his robe, and followed Severus Snape's lead. He headed back to the Ministry with a well-mannered crack. The rest of his day past most uneventfully. Lucius had been expecting the news Severus Snape had brought him for weeks now, so he had no reason to be shaken up about it. Lucius scored his required signature in the nick of time and was on his way home just as it began to grow dark outside.

The crow followed him home and joined the Malfoys for supper. Narcissa Malfoy had her house elves make Severus Snape's favorite because, despite what the man was most likely thinking, she wasn't completely evil. Draco made a horrible mess and his near constant crying was terribly annoying. Though the high pitched sound was certainly better than the pitiful argument his wife and Severus Snape proceeded to conduct the entire meal, Lucius thought.

Halfway through dessert, both men had a painful sensation in their left arm and knew it was time for-as Lucius would say-the main event. Lucius yelled at his house elves, kissed his wife on the mouth, and held his squirming child in place until he managed a brief kiss to the boy's brow. Severus Snape apologized to Narcissa for his harsh, untrue words and pecked her on the hand with his thin lips.

As they disappeared through the floo, Narcissa calmed her son and took him for a bath while the house elves cleaned up her dining room. After that she handed her baby boy to her elf and took a long bath herself.

She reflected over the things motherhood had brought upon her while she bathed. Since when had Narcissa started defying Dark Lords of all things? She had thought life after marriage would bore her. Narcissa should have taken a better look at the man she was marrying, she supposed. Not that she had any regrets, but she should have seen it coming was all.

Of course, Narcissa's life had never once been simple - never quite _could_ be simple. If it wasn't her own siblings stirring everything up, it was some other distant relative power-tripping and causing problems for everybody. This time the root of Narcissa's problems started with her own husband, Lucius, and another fellow housemate, Severus Snape, just being themselves. The two of them had discovered a secret, something that they really shouldn't have, a few months ago. How? because, as true Slytherins, they overheard it by eavesdropping at precisely the right moment. Narcissa couldn't blame them for that. However, the information was very secretive and could be dangerous to a lot of important people, including Severus Snape and the Malfoys.

This information they'd overheard was only sensitive because the Wizarding World was at war. This war had waged between Lord Voldemort and the Ministry for eleven long, long years. At any other time the information would have been taken as a load of dragon dung, but desperate times, desperate measures and all that.

Clearly the Dark Lord-Voldemort, Tom Riddle, or whatever you choose to call him-ran the dark side of things, but there was a lightside of this war, and it wasn't truly the Ministry. No. The Ministry happened to be infiltrated with many like her own husband which secretly bore the Dark Lord's mark. The opposition was led by a great, old wizard named Dumbledore, whose side wished for Voldemort's demise. The Malfoys wanted nothing to do with this side. In fact, they chose to be on the dark side of things. The Malfoys were a very important family, you see, and just couldn't be found on the losing side of a war, and with Lord Voldemort all set to take over . . . it was just a matter of time. It seemed that the Dark Lord couldn't be stopped, and Narcissa would always side with the survivors. Even if they were a bunch of medieval brutes, Narcissa felt her families' lives were worth it.

But Severus Snape, so much like the Gryffindors he'd always meddled around with, wanted to use this information to warn those in risk and help them as soon as possible. Lucius had had other ideas, for Severus Snape's own safety of course. There was no way that Severus had enough power to keep such prominent information from Lord Voldemort for very long and survive it. Severus could barely manage Occlumency against the Dark Lord as it was. Though he had been getting better . . .

Narcissa toweled herself off and waved the tub dry with her wand. Now was not the time to be pondering over Severus Snape's skills. Normally she would be dressing in her nightgown already, but tonight she was expecting company. She dressed in a longsleeved black gown made of thin silk, and then left to finish her hair in her child's room as she waited. Narcissa needed to be near her son in case something went wrong.

Lucius and, in turn, Severus had been at a crossroads with how to move forward with the recently eavesdropped information, until they called in Mrs. Malfoy. Armed with the secret, and with help from her trusty house elf Linky, Narcissa concocted a plan to thwart the person the two of them hated most in the world. Voldemort.

She wasn't joining the light side, it wasn't like _that_. After all, neither a Malfoy nor a Black would ever risks those odds in a tribe full of Gryffindors, but she would use any means she could to achieve those particular ends, and preferably before her whole family wound up dead or in Azkaban.

The plan hadn't been what her husband had expected, but Lucius raised no objections and actually made improvements to her original idea so that the Malfoys might profit out of the death of Lord Voldemort. Severus, of course, hated the idea but played his part well after a bit of light convincing. It was decided that, in order for Narcissa's plan to be set in motion, Severus had to tell the Dark Lord about what he'd overheard, leaving the next few months risky for all parties involved, except Snape who would be in Voldemort's good graces for once.

Narcissa nearly hissed to herself as she thought about how the idiotic man had thrown the safety she'd handed him out the window by fluttering off to Dumbledore anyway. Like the old wizard would actually save them or something. Perhaps she shouldn't have trusted Severus Snape as much as she had, Narcissa wondered as she finally got the last bit of her spell-dried hair twisted and pinned. Her husband certainly didn't trust Snape past the length of his own nose, but not even Lucius could deny Severus' usefulness.

All of that, however, was the least of Narcissa's worries right now. She had gotten herself quite tangled in this complicated web all on her own. She was an adult and a mother now, she couldn't hang the blame on her crazy family or unstable friends. Narcissa was playing this game with the two most powerful wizards she had ever met. Lord Voldemort was unpredictable, evil, and insane. Dumbledore was just Albus bloody Dumbledore. Her old headmaster, the most intimidating and ridiculous man she'd ever spoken to at any age. Even though Narcissa found herself well-practiced in people with such personalities, this plan was horribly daring for her standards.

It seemed that the Malfoys weren't the only special ones in danger here. There were some important people at risk on the light side as well, and Narcissa's plan could leave all of them dead. Though that mattered very little to Narcissa because of the risks she was taking herself.

It was much, much later when her visitor finally arrived. The wizard just appeared, looking tired but as colorful as he always did. His hair was on fire a bit. He seemed to smell it before chuckling and putting out the flames with a wave of his hand. She watched his every movement in the mirror.

"Narcissa, my dear," his voice behind her said. "You have allowed me through your wards. How thoughtful."

"Dumbledore," Narcissa said as she stood and turned around slowly. She looked to her wide eyed elf who was holding an equally wide eyed Draco tight to her chest. Narcissa waved Linky away and waited for them to disappear before she turned and spoke again. "I was hoping you would stop by."

"The Potters are dead," offered Dumbledore, conversationally, with a sad smile.

"Pity," drawled Narcissa, "and here Severus put all his trust in you to do one thing. Save poor, little Lily Potter."

Dumbledore blinked at her. "I believe he trusted you to do much the same, or have I been mistaken all this time?"

Narcissa raised an eyebrow. "Only if you have somehow been acting the blind fool in love just like Severus has."

She had never lied to Severus, not once. She always said that if her plan didn't work then the Potters would surely die, and that they might die even if it did work.

Severus, Dumbledore, the two of them could lie to themselves all they wanted. Narcissa knew how the truth could sometimes hurt, but she had promised never to lie to herself again. She may have been the reason Voldemort chose to attack the Potters so soon,but he would have found out eventually. Or he would have surely killed every last one of them before any of it mattered. That was the truth as she saw it.

Whether or not Severus Snape had told Dumbledore _everything_ after all, the Potters had told him recently, or he just somehow figured it out on his own, Narcissa suspected Dumbledore had known of her plan for quite awhile and would try his best to keep the Potters alive.

Clearly, his best hadn't been enough either.

Dumbledore snapped his fingers and a floating bundle appeared next to him. Narcissa felt something deep inside her unclench as she processed the sight that could only be one living, breathing Harry Potter floating there in the air. Her plan had worked. She had never lied, Lily and James Potter were always variables. Little Harry never was. He lived and Lord Voldemort was as good as dead. _Her plan had worked._

"What will happen to the boy now?" asked Narcissa, a little breathless. The three Slytherins had planned to retrieve Harry Potter themselves if the Potters had perished. She didn't need to ask if they'd been stopped by someone in the Order. Her adrenaline covered the sting of failure she would later feel as she watched Dumbledore take the sleeping child into his arms, but Narcissa had enough sense to catch the foreboding essence his gesture carried. Dumbledore was not about to hand the boy over to her willingly.

"I have chosen a place he will be well protected," stated Dumbledore calmly, as if he wasn't stealing a child. Narcissa supposed he had somehow figured out a way that meant he technically wasn't, at least on parchment.

Not that she wasn't ready to do the exact same thing if she somehow managed to get her hands on the boy.

"Touche," she said. "I suppose you will hide him well and bring him out like your shiny little toy when you deem the Wizarding World ready for his presence. Or perhaps you'll just wait until the next dark wizard shows himself and send the child after him when his fate could affect my son as well?"

"Why, Narcissa, why would his fate affect young Draco's as well?" Dumbledore asked, his eyes finally twinkling in that way they usually did.

Her suspicions were true then, Dumbledore could be an evil bastard. She had always wondered how the old wizard managed to get to where he was now.

"Then I suppose that's that, isn't it?" Narcissa said because it was all she could say. "I hope I don't have to point out that I will always do whatever it takes to protect my son. If that means breaking the spell that has been placed on Harry Potter to make him our boy wonder, I won't hesitate to do it no matter the cost."

"I believe when the time comes that will not be necessary," Dumbledore offered and then was gone.

Narcissa called her house elf back and stood there watching Linky try to impress a pissed off Draco with her silly spells. A chill wrecked Narcissa's whole body as she knitted her wards back around Dumbledore's presence. Hours or minutes later, her husband appeared in the doorway of Draco's nursery with a floating, unconscious Severus behind him. He didn't ask why she was dressed up, or why she suddenly looked as though she had single handedly survived a gruesome, terrible war all by herself. All Lucius did was speak to her in that calm tone that always caught her attention. The Potters were killed in the crossfire, but Lily decided to go along with the Malfoys' plan in her dying moments, Lucius explained his side of the story before leaving her to put Severus to bed. If anything, the two of them confirmed what Narcissa already knew, she had certainly won.

Narcissa summoned herself some firewhiskey and fell gracefully into her rocking chair. She took a large sip from the bottle and eyed her son. Draco was mid-air, fussy, and spitting milk all over her house elf. She smiled a sad, sad smile and brought up her bottle in toast. Something besides her achievement suddenly gripped her, and with it came an achy sort of peace. The war was over. They were freed for now.

"To Harry Potter," Narcissa said at her crying son. "The boy who bloody _lived_."


	2. The Silver Presents

Approximately ten years later, Mrs. and Mr. Malfoy were dressing and heading to breakfast while their son Draco was sat bouncing up and down on top of his packed trunk. Draco's slender frame showed off years of picky eating and his hair was as white as the day he was born. The only thing new about Draco was the set of robes he had on. Otherwise his feet were bare and, as usual, his wand was clutched in one hand. Draco had had his wand since he could remember but he knew that he wasn't allowed to tell anyone about that lest the wrong type of wizard catch wind. The legal time for Draco to receive his wand was supposed to be a few months ago when he'd turned eleven, because the Ministry of Magic didn't seem to care how ludicrous it was to keep a young pure-blooded witch or wizard away from their wands for eleven whole years. How was Draco supposed to do anything without a wand? He wasn't, apparently. If the Ministry had their way Draco would still be calling for his _mummy_ or his _elf_ every time he needed a soak in the bath.

Draco's new robes were all black like a lot of his father's robes. Draco's mother always said that the color made his father's hair and skin look great, and Draco looked a lot like his father so he should look great, too, he thought. Draco stood suddenly and strode toward the full-length mirror he kept off in a corner. It was the third time he'd checked his appearance this morning. The robes showed off his hands and toes and head, that was it. As far as Draco could tell he still looked the same as he always did. His hair was a stringy flat mess and would be until his house elf spelled it for him. Even though he could fill his own bath, Draco was horrible with beauty charms. That had been a lesson learned the hard way. Draco's hair had been considerably longer before his last attempts at styling it.

"Do something with that mess for Salazar's sake," the mirror-image of himself smirked, and Draco scowled back at it. Draco relented before his mirror though-he always did-and went back to bouncing on his trunk.

Draco knew that he would have to remember to put the Hogwarts uniform on underneath his robes before he left, too, in order to avoid being naked in front if a cartful of people on the train, but a shirt and tie seemed very useless right now.

A few minutes later, a popping noise sounded through Draco's room and a small, silvery looking elf that came up to Draco's waist appeared in front of him. Draco jumped up and smiled down at the creature.

"Linky!" he shouted in excitement, but the little elf's eyes went round as saucers and she began tugging on her own long ears.

"Oh! What is the matter, master Draco? What is the matter?" the elf squeaked.

"Linky," sighed Draco, the moment completely lost when he looked in those huge eyeballs. "I'm just so excited to be off to Hogwarts. Do stop thinking I'm an angry beast!"

"Linky is being so sorry, master Draco!" Linky assured him as she frantically flattened out her pillowcase with shaky hands. She had three pillowcases, her favorite was the black one. She wore it now like it was a modest little dress, long creases from being recently ironed as proof. "Linky be thinking master still be sleeping is all!" she insisted.

Draco sighed again and rolled his eyes. He started his bouncing from heel to toe once more without noticing it.

"Linky is . . . Linky is . . ." the elf began to mutter but as she eyed him she cut herself off with an expression that made her look both flushed and sickly.

"What is it, Linky?" Draco asked and she burst into tears so suddenly that Draco had to spring back to avoid getting wet. He nearly tripped over his trunk but quickly righted himself. Linky hardly mattered but he certainly hoped he could manage a little more grace once he got to school.

"Linky is being such a sad elf!" she squealed, completely missing Draco's little mishap. If she'd seen it he'd surely be subject to fifty healing spells what with the state the house elf was in. Sure, Draco could order her to stop, but Linky wasn't above dragging Draco's mother into things. "Linky knows a good elf should be happy for master, but master Draco is leaving Linky and Linky has not been being without her master Draco for eleven long, long years! Linky will not be having anything without her master Draco being in the manor with Linky!"

"Master Draco will be able to write everyday," Draco reminded the house elf, not even realizing he'd started talking like the elves again. He'd always had a problem with listening to the elves more than he did his tutors. Draco couldn't help it, the house elves were much more interesting. It pissed his father off more than anything though so he had to try hard not to do it ever again. The problem was that he could never catch himself until his father's face grew tight, and his father wasn't around all the time. "Linky should be happy, she can be popping wherever she is wanting. Draco will be stuck in that big castle without even a broom for him to be escaping with!"

Linky abruptly stopped crying and narrowed her eyes at him. Draco realized his mistake. "Linky be thinking master Draco is being all happy for his leaving," said Linky flatly, her eyes going even thinner like long, deep everlasting trenches of chilling ice. The elf acted like his mother, Draco knew Mrs. Malfoy was proud of that. Draco did not think his father would be anything but angry if Draco expressed how much Linky could sometimes look just like Mr. Malfoy, too. "Why is master Draco worrying about escaping if it is being so great at - at this _Hogwarts_?"

"Draco is not worried really . . . but having a broom would be nice is all. They have a stupid rule against first years having brooms, Linky knows."

"Yes," the elf nodded seriously, "Linky be knowing all about the rules of Hogwarts from master Lucius. Master Draco should be getting to bring whatever he be wanting. The rule is being most, most stupid."

"Everything will be all right," Draco suddenly burst. "Master Draco will be having a wonderful time."

Linky smiled sadly at him, seeming more like Draco's mother again. Like she just _knew_ things that he didn't. Draco was instantly a bit irritated and scowled at her. "Master Lucius would like to be seeing master Draco as soon as he is being ready," she said and Draco blinked, completely lost in the change of topic. "There will be having breakfast for master Draco then. Linky be having nothing to do already. No making breakfast! No packing anything!"

"Perfect." Draco smiled, and Linky froze before she could get going again. "Master Draco is wanting Linky to be checking over everything and making sure master is having what he be needing while he is meeting with father."

Draco hummed as he made his way down to the black drawing room where his mother and father always took their breakfast. Mrs. and Mr. Malfoy were good parents, Draco thought, however strange they sometimes seemed. They argued, but no more than adults in the novels he'd read. Draco was sure he had more clothes, books, and hobbies than any of the kids he'd met. He was also sure he knew more magic than most every first year starting this term. Besides maybe Harry Potter. Draco was still really special, though. He never ate too much candy and always remembered to clean his teeth. Draco could never figure out what his parents did right, but he never had an urge to lie about spelling his teeth clean like his friends Goyle and Crabbe did. He didn't necessarily think this made him better than the other kids, but it certainly made him different. That much had been clear for awhile now.

His mother kept telling him that it was nothing she and Mr. Malfoy did to Draco, and would then change the topic. His father had put a hand on Draco's hair and said that Draco was born with an enormous brain. Draco did have a big head. Or maybe his body was just small.

An eerie chill came over Draco as he passed through the white gallery. He tried not to look out the huge row of windows but failed. He ended up running all the way to the end of the white hallway. Draco knew it was silly to be scared in one's own home, but some things like the dark, creepy forest that made up his back yard never failed to get to him. His manor was huge. There was no way possible to ever hear anything that was going on anywhere else in the house besides the room you were in. The hallways were long and filled with scowling portraits. The rooms were wide and had tall ceilings. There were rows of gaping windows and huge, hot fireplaces in all the wrong places. Four of the bed chambers were haunted to the point of complete uselessness. There were seven ghosts and counting that haunted Malfoy Manor, and something was always popping out of the walls. The scariest was really the cursed instruments all around the manor that would randomly start playing at the worst times.

Draco's parents weren't scared. He sometimes got the feeling that they weren't scared of anything. His father would roll his eyes at any passing ghost and his mother would only curse under her breath and ignore them. His mother would stroll through the house with only the moon lighting her way. Once the lumos extinguished Draco would try about three times to get whatever he needed himself, each time run back to his room, and then call for Linky to help him. Though he could cast a pretty good lumos now himself, it was still better to stick with Linky. Just in case any vampires or werewolves or blood thirsty ghosts decided to pop out of the walls next.

It is ridiculous for someone to be afraid of nothing, Draco's father always said. Draco didn't understand at first but now he thought that he was starting to get it. There was always something scarier. Life just kept getting scarier.

Draco shook his head and put on a smile as he strode into the black drawing room.

The smile abruptly dropped off his face. His father sat across from his mother at a circular table. There were three small presents wrapped in silver with big bows of silk that were lined up on the surface between them. Three . . . and that was it.

"Father . . . mother," Draco said slowly. "What's going on?"

He knew that he shouldn't be disappointed about getting three presents, only three presents, but Draco felt the disappointment cooling his gut. What was he going to do if he didn't have anything new to occupy his time with at Hogwarts?

He was looking forward to having new things to keep him busy. So he wouldn't have to think about having to live with Goyle and Crabbe, and without Linky, and so far away from _everything._

"Why Draco," his father greeted. "You're up early. Excited, are we?"

"A bit." Draco found his smile almost absently and instantly felt silly so he looked at his toes.

"No story this morning then?" his father inquired as he waved Draco into the seat between him and Draco's mother. A plate of breakfast and a glass of water appeared if front of Draco, but he was much too worried to eat now.

"No, father," admitted Draco as he sat and blinked at the food. "I couldn't concentrate."

Normally Draco wouldn't leave bed until he'd put a good dent in a storybook.

"Just as well; at Hogwarts there won't be any time in the mornings for lounging in bed."

Draco nodded, he'd heard that before. A million times. Draco's father had a thing for repeating himself. In his defense, Draco was never too good at listening.

"Professor Snape will be coming over today before we leave for the station. The four of us need to have a conversation."

Draco blinked and then nodded, despite how odd the request was.

"Now . . . I'm sure you're dying to know about the three gifts we've gotten you here on the table?"

"Well . . . yes." Draco looked down, not trusting his own face to remain pleasant.

"When I was your age, I had a lesson in quality over quantity. It is your turn now, Draco, to understand."

Draco swallowed some air and nodded.

"In a minute you will open these three gifts. You may keep all of them. One of them you must fit in your trunk. One must be carried with you on the train. The last one will not go to Hogwarts at all. Once you see the gifts you may chose which you want to bring with you and then you can figure out how."

Draco opened the first present, a square shaped one with a yellow silk ribbon. Inside the box was a smaller box with very intricate decorations. Draco's mother explained that the box was a house elf keeper. At Draco's blank look, his father elaborated that Draco would have to enlarge and shrink the item for use and transport.

Draco tried and failed to enlarge the box three times before he moved on. He couldn't concentrate yet. The second present he went for was flatter than the others and tied with a blue ribbon. Inside was a book that was spelled together like one of his mother's old photo albums, but it was filled with pages of Snape's scribbles, Mrs. Malfoy's letters, and Mr. Malfoy's neatly written advice that organized it all in a five part system. Each was labelled something different, like "Quidditch" and "Dealing With Gryffindors" and "How to Survive the Loony Man In Charge." Draco flipped through it for a long time while his parents watched in silence.

The last present to open was a tall, narrow, rectangular shaped box tied with a red bow which, to Draco's surprise, contained an invisibility cloak that seemed to keep filling the silver box forever. Once he managed to lay the many folds of the cloak out across the table, Draco stared at it for a good minute before exclaiming, "oh, Merlin."

"Indeed," his father chuckled. When Draco continued to blink at his new items, his father prodded, "you do remember that you cannot take all three with you to Hogwarts, yes?"

"Draco just be thinking about that, yes," Draco said, and didn't even stay to catch his father's scowl. In the next second all his presents were scooped up and Draco was running back to his room without stopping to think about the The Gorgons Woods or Old Wizard Malfoy when his ghost floated across the white hallway right in front of Draco's sprinting form.

Draco kicked his door but stopped it when it was an inch from shutting. He didn't have many rules at the manor, but when Draco was given one he listened to it. Draco was not to shut doors all the way ever again.

The three gifts were all placed on his trunk, and their boxes neatly stacked under Draco's bed. He liked to keep boxes for later use; his father hated the habit so Draco kept it as out of sight as possible. Draco was then on the floor before his trunk with his knees folded neatly under him as he peered at each item-a neatly folded shimmering piece of cloth, the spell-bound book, and the small wooden box-from eye level while Linky wrung her hands silently in a corner behind him.

"I have to be taking the box . . ." Draco was muttering to himself like his mother sometimes would. "I have to be making it work. Or . . . Linky!" he shouted so suddenly the elf jumped three feet in the air.

Draco sighed. All of his excitement was suddenly gone.

"Oh! Oh! Yes, master Draco, Linky is being here still," she assured.

Draco sighed again.

"I need Linky to be being over here now and be enlarging the box," explained Draco, and he flailed a little because he was still much too frazzled to do any good with magic, but he didn't have time to calm down. He was sure that his father had done this on purpose and would be summoning Draco for their meeting with Snape any minute. "Can Linky be doing that for master Draco?"

"Linky can be trying, master Draco," she assured and then easily enlarged the box with only a subtle wink so that it now stood a little taller than half of Draco's length.

They practiced three times shrinking and enlarging the keeper before Draco was satisfied that there would be no problems with it at Hogwarts. If Draco could even figure out how to get Linky inside Hogwarts, that was. Draco was pretty sure personal house elves were not permitted at his new school, but his father had never agreed with Albus Dumbledore, the Hogwarts Headmaster and Slayer of Dark Wizards, before so why would things change now? His father wouldn't buy him a keeper just to lock Linky in his room at Malfoy Manor until Draco came back for the holidays . . . surely.

 _Surely._

That left the book and the cloak then. He would stuff Linky in a bag and spell-o-tape her mouth shut if he had to.

"Master Draco be taking his nice, nice things and not Linky. Linky is being okay-"

"Linky is being shut up," hissed Draco, now that he knew he could somehow take her to school he wouldn't be leaving her behind for anything.

Draco dug through his trunk until he located his set of _The Standard Book of Spells_. He vaguely remembered seeing mimicking spells somewhere in the table of contents in Book Two. He was surprisingly right and found the chapter which contained all the information that the author had to offer on how to cheat, copy, and steal.

By the time he was through the text, Draco felt he was calm enough to try one of the spells. The book instructed Draco to focus on what he wanted to happen, and why he wanted it to happen as he waved his wand over the items and spoke the incantation.

Nothing happened.

"Great," sighed Draco, "wonderful."

Just then a house elf was knocking on his door, telling Draco that it was time for their meeting with Snape. Draco set Linky about trying to make a copy of the journal and then took off toward his mother's study. Snape was considered an honorary guest, Draco knew, so no drawing rooms or dining halls for his visits. Though Mrs. Malfoy's study was always out of the question for anyone else, ever (that Draco knew of at least).

The trip to the black study was much more pleasant than the black drawing room. Draco only passed one magical instrument and it happened to be a tuned piano that often played his favorite music. The thing was less cursed and more charmed, Draco suspected, though one could never be too sure with his parents. They acted like even the Oboe of Death was a normal item to have about the house (Draco had been to both Crabbe and Goyle's homes and knew for a fact that that evil oboe was anything but normal). Draco's mother resided admittedly closer in the west wing of their manor to where Draco stayed in the south, too.

A short walk later, Draco was announcing his presence with a light knock on the door as he took a deep breath of the icy cool aroma his mother always had brewing in her rooms. It was interesting, his mother's study. Draco did say his parents were strange, didn't he? But they were the good sort of strange, Draco thought, and his opinion was all that really mattered.

The walls of her study were shelves filled mostly with books, though Draco hadn't ever seen his mother reading any of them. Her decoration was really filling in the weird tart. Countless species of plants, only a select few which were still living, sat and covered and collected upon every available surface. They grew, moved, and died as she pleased, and yet she kept almost all of them rotten and brown and crisp. Each and every bud smelled the same though, whether red or white, alive or dead, they all smelled cold and clean. Draco always liked it in there.

It seemed that Draco had interrupted an argument, which was lovely. Draco did love a good debate to blow off some steam.

"My dearests," Draco paused and smirked at Snape, "Professor. Care to let me in on this . . . what ever it is?"

Draco strolled to the table they all sat around, and took a second to brush the hair out of his eyes since no one said anything.

Finally his mother spoke. "Sit, Draco dear. Please, join us."

"Thank you, mother." Draco did as he was told. "Are you all arguing over me?" asked Draco next and eyed all the adults for their reactions. Nobody gave a thing away and Draco sighed. It was worse than dealing with his mirror. "Fine. Don't tell me. I don't care either way."

"Draco-" his father started but was cut off with a low hissing sound his mother made.

"Draco," his mother said once she had his full attention, "yet again we have been discussing some alternate methods of learning for you . . . other than Hogwarts."

"But your mother is insane if she thinks-" Draco's father tried only to have Snape speak over him.

"How are _you_ feeling about starting at Hogwarts this term, Draco?" his godfather asked.

Draco offered them a small smile before he spoke. "I'm feeling alright about it. Other than the outdated rules, slobbering Gryffindors, and the has-been Headmaster it sounds like great fun."

By the time Draco finished his answer, his father was pinching his nose, Snape looked on the verge of laughter, and Draco's mother only rolled her eyes.

"Well, I am sure I do not know where he learned to be so forward with his opinions," his father claimed with a drawn out sigh, and a light clasp of hands.

Snape actually snorted some tea out of his nose. "Really, Lucius?" he drawled as soon as he was recovered.

"Really," replied Draco's father, "he must get that from the Black side. Malfoys are never so open."

"Certainly, dear," Draco's mother assured. "Certainly."

"Look, the point is," Snape started, "the boy needs an education from a well-known school."

"Exactly," his father agreed with a firm nod.

"And Narcissa, you refuse to send him even as far as Beauxbatons."

"Correct," his mother drawled easily.

"Which leaves only Hogwarts," Snape continued. "I think now it will be up to Draco whether or not he learns to survive."

Suddenly all eyes were for Draco and the air felt much heavier than it did a second ago.

"Sure." Draco nodded.

None of the adults looked very reassured, but Draco wasn't hurt because he felt like he was lying anyway. He blinked.

"You do know what is truly not okay to say, don't you, Draco?" Snape asked him slowly.

"Actually . . ." Draco was starting to see what this was. It wasn't _Draco_ himself that had a problem. The three around him were Slytherins setting out to ensure their own well-being. Draco smirked. "I was planning on telling the story about how I found out who the Dark Lord was and seeing how many people wanted to be my friend afterward," he told them.

His mother was only rolling her eyes again, but Snape and his father looked decidedly paler. Their worried faces filled Draco inside with a warmth he hadn't felt since Linky popped in his room this morning and ruined his excitement with her eyeballs. He felt like he could suddenly breathe again when seconds ago he'd been fighting against a smoky haze that all these terrible things that had happened to him today-like hearing his father's disappointment just moments before-was leaving around him.

After that, tea with Snape went rather smooth and quick. They talked of Draco's schedule and meal times and the Slytherin dorms. Snape presented Draco with new potions ingredients for his kit. Some Draco recognized vaguely from looking through a few years of the potions text. Others he wasn't familiar with at all, but thanked Snape for them all the same. If Snape was giving it to him, Draco was going to bet it would be useful at some point.

Soon Draco was being dismissed with a reminder that it was nearing time to head to the station. When Draco arrived back at his room, he found that Linky hadn't had any luck mimicking the journal either. Perhaps his father had warded it against elf magic, but in any case Draco couldn't afford to leave the journal at home so he kept trying, but when an elf knocked on his door saying it was time to leave Draco still didn't have a copy of it.

Draco had to leave the cloak. He really had to.

Draco kicked his trunk and yelled at Linky to get in his bag and not talk again until he said so. He opened his small coin purse wide and she stuck her toes in and disappeared with a swirl of silver. He could picture her sitting on top of the small fortune of galleons his father had most likely stocked the thing with. Draco made sure Linky remembered to put her keeper in his trunk, tucked his journal under his arm, and left the invisibility cloak folded on his bed as he strode off toward the pale entryway.


	3. The Boy from the Shop

After running back to his room and remembering to have Linky spell his hair in place, Draco really was on his way to the station with the house elf stashed safely in his pocket once more. Though Draco couldn't shake the feeling that he'd still forgotten something. He didn't have much time to ponder what it might have been between his father's mannerly crack of apparition and the short walk it took them to reach the Hogwarts Express though.

A while later, Draco was biding his parents farewell, latching on to one of Crabbe and Goyle's arms, and dragging them away from the commotion and into the second to last compartment on the train. Snape had suggested Draco use it in the journal, Draco knew, he had read over that section briefly while trying to copy the thing.

Like Snape said it would be, it was empty. Draco took a deep breath, shoved the brutes in ahead of him, and forcefully pulled the door almost shut behind them. Draco next fell into a seat across from Goyle and Crabbe and crossed his legs, eyeing the two lumps seated in front of him. The crowd had Draco on edge more than he would liked to have been. He only hoped it didn't show.

"Draco!" Crabbe said, and Draco felt some of his anxiety drip away. He never was sure the two other boys would remember who Draco was. Eight years of having to be reintroduced each time they met must have left a bad taste in Draco's mouth. "Long time, no see!" the smiling boy continued.

Draco arched an eyebrow. "Crabbe," he said. "I saw you not two weeks ago in Diagon Alley."

"Oh yeah, I forgot," remarked Crabbe. "Still. Two weeks is a long time, yeah?"

Draco just stared at him.

"S'pose," commented Goyle, and shrugged when Draco looked his way.

Draco felt his anxiety come back in full force. Forget two weeks! Draco's mind flashed urgently, it was going to be one _long_ train ride. He'd planned on pulling Linky out and having her ward the door so he could brag about his personal house elf as loud as he pleased, but Draco remembered why it was a bad idea to tell Crabbe and Goyle any kind of secret. Especially one of the long term variety. After a few days they would just seem to forget that things were supposed to be secrets. Instead of trying to fill the silence with conversation, Draco rolled his eyes and pulled out his journal, putting on the perfect busy face and completely ignored whatever stupid banter the other two had going.

The journal really was the most interesting reading he'd done in awhile, and Draco was learning a lot about three people he never could figure out, but even this couldn't distract him once Goyle and Crabbe started noisily eating their candy. Draco tried to ignore them, but a particularly loud wrapper caused Draco to lose his cool. He snapped his journal shut and stood to stretch. Draco sneered at the other two with no effect for a moment before sighing and turning to peak out of their compartment.

As soon as Draco leaned toward the door, it was wrenched open and a short, hissing little thing stormed in through it. All three boys in the compartment were left gaping as the mess sorted itself into a small, pale, and immensely angry female who slid into the seat next to where Draco had been sitting.

"Harry Potter," the girl hissed at none of them in particular. "Can you believe it? Wetting themselves over something so awfully . . . _typical_. It's disgusting, is what it is."

"Excuse me?" asked Draco, eyebrows both arched high.

The girl seemed startled that there were other people around but quickly recovered. "Well, that's not really any of your business, is it," she sneered and pulled a small book out of the pockets of her robes and instantly began reading it.

"You're the one who came in here shouting!" Draco protested but received no reply whatsoever. Well, fine, thought Draco, two can play that game.

It was a good five minutes of trying to read over the candy wrappers and the fuming anger next to him before Draco finally broke.

He snapped his journal shut and towered over all of them. He pulled out his wand and spoke very slowly. "I will not tolerate such . . . distractions." Crabbe and Goyle blinked at him and slowly re-stuffed their pockets - which surely must have been charmed endless. Draco inwardly released the breath he'd held in and didn't even bother to roll his eyes. They were really the two Draco was worried about leaving, the girl could disappear right now and Draco wouldn't bat an eye. He might actually smile. "You . . . girl," Draco continued, feeling better. "You don't come into my compartment shouting about Harry Potter and then keep your big fat mouth shut about it, so tell me what you know or get out."

He raised his wand and she smirked. "What are you going to do with that?" she asked, drawing her own.

Draco felt his own face go hot and he opened his mouth to most likely say something stupid when suddenly a ton of sparks shot out of his wand.

The girl looked better than mollified, she looked terrified, and luckily she was too busying putting out her robes to notice how shocked Draco was by this turn of events. By the time she looked back toward him Draco had composed himself and was hoping he looked as if he'd meant to do it.

"Fine, crazy!" she snapped, her eyes wide. "I'll tell you."

And that was how Draco learned that Harry Potter was actually on the train that Draco was on . . . at the very same time and all.

Draco had kept telling himself Harry Potter would be at Hogwarts (they were the same age after all, and why wouldn't the boy go to Hogwarts?) but it was different to actually have his desires confirmed. This meant that Draco would have to _do_ something about it.

Draco suddenly felt stupid for picking his journal over a bloody cloak of invisibility. Sod grades, Draco frantically thought, when he could have spied on Harry Potter.

It would have been so easy. Draco could have figured out everything the Boy-Who-Lived liked before they talked so he knew what was right to say. So Harry would have been jumping to be Draco's friend without much effort at all.

"Merlin . . ." muttered Draco, as he sat down and crossed his legs. What he really needed was Linky, but how could he get the others out without it seeming suspicious? Draco wondered. An idea struck him a moment later, and he called to Crabbe and Goyle saying, "you two, go replenish your stocks," Draco handed them some money, "and find out where the Boy-Who-Lived is sitting . . . and who with, if possible," Draco directed. "And keep my name out of it."

That, at least, Draco was confident they could do.

"Finally, some Draco quests," Crabbe smirked at Goyle and Goyle blushed, but left with Crabbe none the the same. So they _still_ weren't too old to be bossed about and find it fun, Draco noted, thinking that this information would more than likely come in use many times in the near future.

Draco was then left with the girl. He opened his mouth to speak but was immediately cut off, which was always irritating. "You're Draco Malfoy," she said, easily ruining all plans he had of tossing her out with clean hands. "We've met. A few times actually."

Draco studied her. "Oh . . . yes," he agreed, "I suppose we have. You're . . . Parkinson's daughter . . . _Petunia_."

"It's Pansy."

"My apologies."

"Of course."

Draco really looked at her again. "You hate Potter, then, that much is clear . . . set to be in Slytherin, you think?"

"None other."

Draco thought for a moment. "What if . . . what if I made you a deal, could you keep a secret?" Draco asked her next.

She eyed him carefully for a moment then smirked. "Well, I never told on you and . . . what was that little boy's name?" she asked with a chuckle. "I can't remember . . . Cass or something like that?"

Draco could have died as soon as he registered the words that spilled from her curved lips. He didn't understand how he could have forgotten something like that.

"You never did?" asked Draco faintly.

"Why would I? We're on the same side. It can only benefit me to be nice to someone like you, that's what my parents would say anyway - _not_ that I asked them, mind, I just know how they are."

Draco found his smirk. It seemed Parkinson senior had a lot in common with Draco's father. "I think this will work out lovely," he said, suddenly struck with confidence. "I need to befriend Potter. Think of how life as a Slytherin would be with Potter sorted with us."

"You're sure you don't just want to befriend Potter 'cause you like the looks of him and want to invite him to hump pillows with you in the closets of the Slytherin dorms?"

"Pansy!" Draco softly shrieked, her name flying off his tongue as memories rushed back to the forefront of his mind. A vulgar little whore, she was.

"What? It's a legitimate concern I have," explained Pansy without missing a beat.

"No need to be so-so vulgar!" hissed Draco.

"Says the pillow-humper," Pansy replied flatly.

"Merlin!" Draco shrieked loudly this time.

"Oh, don't be such a prude," she drawled. "I let Zabini hump _me_ one time if it makes you feel any better."

It sort of did. "Zabini . . . really?" Draco had thought whore already, right?

"We were like eight."

Draco hummed.

"So, Potter?" Pansy inquired.

"Oh, yes!" replied Draco, too quickly, "I don't even know what Potter looks like!"

"So . . . you do like boys?"

"What?" Draco was genuinely thrown, but tried not to let his confusion show. "I like boys just fine. Wherever did you get the impression I didn't? Because I let you stay here and made them go? Well, you shouldn't be flattered about that. Goyle and Crabbe are just-"

"Of course. I suppose you have a plan then?" she cut in.

Draco blinked. The look on Pansy's face was familiar and irritating, but Draco couldn't remember what they were talking about so he answered her question. "I do have a plan actually but I will only tell it to you if you make an unbreakable vow."

"Seriously? Yes!" the girl hissed. "You know how to cast an unbreakable vow?" she added quickly.

"I don't actually, but now I know you're somewhat serious."

"Any more test you'd like me to pass, mi'lord?" she quipped.

"That isn't even funny." Draco sneered at her and she laughed.

Once the girl ceased all her terribly piggish squealing and properly righted herself, Draco proceeded to tell her of his plan - a plan the likes of which had been seen before only by his own mind's eye. It was terrifying. It was worse than the low buzzing sensation he got in the pit of his stomach while reading when his favorite characters were about to do something stupid-sometimes amazing but mostly just completely stupid-and, just like these characters, Draco was unable to stop himself. He did something he always told himself he would never do and spilled his thoughts to Pansy.

They were going to have Linky take Draco to the manor and get Draco's invisibility cloak so they could spy on Potter. They would use the information to form a friendship with the boy and then invite him to their compartment and charm him with whatever was needed-protection, candy, books on dark magic, clothes, blood sacrifices-until he was begging the sorting hat to put him in Slytherin.

"What about girls?" Pansy asked.

"What about girls?" Draco replied.

Pansy smirked for a long moment. "Nevermind," she drawled at last. "So, where's this elf then?"

Draco opened his coin purse and called for Linky to make a quiet appearance, please. She appeared in a swirl of silver and bowed nearly to the floor. "Master Draco," she greeted. "How is Linky being of service?"

"Linky is-" Draco abruptly cut himself off and glanced at Pansy, who was no longer focused on the elf but Draco instead.

"What is being the matter, master Draco?" Linky asked after a beat.

Draco instantly tried again. "Mas-" he fell silent and closed his eyes. Draco had to control his breathing and think. He held up a finger to his mouth so Linky would know to shut her mouth. The last thing Draco needed was for her to keep belting out that rubbish while he was trying to speak correctly. "I need Linky to be taking me-to take me to Malfoy Manor really quickly. I forgot something, but we have to be-to hurry and get back before the train is-gets too close," Draco explained at last.

"Is that the mouth you're planning on charming Harry Potter with?" questioned Pansy, just as Linky grabbed Draco's hand and they disappeared with a barely there crack.

The cloak was already gone from Draco's bed when they arrived in his room. Draco dragged Linky along with him for the scary trip to the black drawing room, but let go of her hand before they entered.

"Father," Draco greeted. "Mother."

"Draco." His father had an eyebrow raised. "So soon?"

"I think I made a bad decision. I want the cloak."

His father eyed him for a long moment then turned his gaze toward Draco's mother. Draco looked at her as she spoke. "Why did you chose the journal, Draco?"

Draco thought for a moment. "Because it was the best option at the time. I figured I was sneaky enough to sneak about that old castle by myself. I thought learning all your secrets and getting good grades were more important, I suppose."

"And that's changed?" his mother asked him.

"Sort of," Draco said. His mother looked at him blankly. "Fine," Draco relented. "There is someone. Harry Potter. He's on the train. I need the cloak to spy on him."

"And you're natural methods are suddenly failing you why?" his father cut in and Draco could only blink in reply. "You had confidence in them before, why not now, Draco?" he restated a moment later.

Draco thought that was pretty obvious. "It's Harry Potter," he said. "One doesn't just sneak up on Harry Potter."

His mother and father looked at him for a moment then turned to one another. A few seconds passed before Mrs. Malfoy cracked a devilish grin and began to laugh. Mr. Malfoy surprised Draco by joining in a few seconds later.

"Draco," his father chuckled finally, when Draco had just contemplated flooing Snape to come check the manor's water supply. "What do you think Harry Potter is? Some kind of God? He is nothing but a boy with magic, just like you." His father stood and strode to him. "Everything that was done to Harry Potter before he killed Lord Voldemort-the protection charms placed on him and the spells to enhance the birth magic within him-were most certainly done to you too. Had Lord Voldemort chose to attack us instead, you surely would have been the Boy-Who-Lived."

Draco shuddered. "Sounds awful."

"We thought so too," his mother said with a soft smile.

"You, Draco," his father started and laid a hand on Draco's shoulder, "are every bit as good as the Boy-Who-Lived, I assure you." His father took off toward the white hallway and called over his shoulder. "No cloak. Have fun at school, my dear boy," is what he said and then he was gone.

Draco turned with pleading eyes to his mother. "You will just have to charm him another way, I'm afraid," she said and sipped her tea. Draco found her so irritating sometimes. "I am going to miss you terribly, my dear, you know that?"

"I know, mother."

Draco returned to find Pansy blocking the compartment door and Goyle and Crabbe waiting on the other side.

"Did you get it?" Pansy asked him and he shook his head as he pulled out his coin purse and gestured for Linky to hop in.

As she disappeared with a swirl, Pansy threw the door open and let the other two inside.

"What happened?" Pansy asked before anyone could get a word in otherwise.

"Long story." Draco shrugged, not wanting to explain. "I can't bring the cloak yet. I don't know when I can. Boys," he turned to the others, "what is the word?"

"We found Potter," said Crabbe.

"He's with another boy, we hear," Goyle said.

"But not anyone I've ever heard of before," added Crabbe.

"That he can remember," reminded Goyle flatly.

"Good." Draco sat so he could think for a minute. "We'll see what we can find out on the way over. Both can come back with us if need be and Goyle and Crabbe can stand guard - in another compartment or something," he announced at last and turned to Pansy for her approval.

"Pansy be liking this plan," she agreed with a cheeky grin and Draco felt himself grow hot enough to die on the spot.

"Zabini ate a worm once, you know," Draco hissed but Pansy only began to laugh. "I saw it with my own eyes."

They had a brief hang up when they stepped out of the compartment and realized they were now at the front of the train.

"Goyle?" Draco questioned, looking around. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"He wasn't sure if there was something up with it," protested Crabbe.

"Yeah," Goyle offered with a patchy red blush. "But Vince said don't worry about. That you probably knew."

"I did know something would happen," Draco agreed with a smirk. "Though, I wasn't sure what. Charmed to enter through the back and exit through the front, you think, Pans?"

"I'd say." Pansy pointed to the blank wall that now covered where they'd exited from. "What is this 'Pans' business?" she added as she started to push them down the passage. "They get their last names, but I'm stuck with 'Pans?'"

"Yes." Draco nodded.

"You, Draco Malfoy," she started, "are one qu-strange, boy. Very, very strange."

"Thank you," Draco replied sincerely, she thought at least, but then he added, "now who has the impediment, hm?"

"Certainly, Draco," she assured; instead of reacting like he'd wanted her to. "Certainly."

The Potter plan was going better than expected by the time they reached the cart the boy supposedly rode in. Draco had overheard a bushy-haired, obviously mudblood girl asking what was so special about Harry Potter who was clearly just a baby when he defeated this Voldemort person? and Draco had stopped to reply but a herd of squealing girls came to his defence before Draco had a chance. Their protests told Draco a lot though. He learned the Boy Who Lived had green eyes and dark black hair, shaggy so that it modestly covered his scar.

Pansy and Draco had their first argument as they walked there. She thought that Potter would take better to her and Draco going in alone and talking to him. Draco thought the boy would rather Draco appear with Crabbe and Goyle. Draco quickly won because he actually had reasons behind his choice, unlike Pansy who just gave Draco a strange look and then blinked a few times. Dense, that one. Of course a boy who has a threat of death hanging over him from dark wizards everywhere would want to surround himself with people who could protect him. It only made sense.

Pansy agreed to wait outside and then told him that Potter was going to be sorted into Gryffindor right as Draco made to enter the boy's compartment, but . . .

Draco forgot his anger completely as he pulled open the door and two large, magnified green eyes came into focus, followed shortly the most unfortunate looking boy Draco had ever seen. Draco suddenly felt hot, remembering a month ago when he'd first met this boy while purchasing his school robes. In the shop, he'd been reminded of Snape when Draco first saw the dark, brooding little thing of a boy, and figured the other was sure to be sorted into Slytherin with Draco . . . but the boy had turned out to be just as big a tosser as Draco's godfather, too.

Draco swallowed down the solid air that suddenly clogged his throat and opened his mouth to speak.


	4. Draconis

Draco was sure he had never been more humiliated in his entire life, but he was trying hard not to act like it. As a matter of fact, Draco couldn't remember ever being embarrassed at all, not really. Scared, sure, but nothing like the embarrassment he felt at this moment.

"Well, that went just as terribly as I thought it would," remarked Pansy, breaking the silence that had accompanied them all the way back to the second to last compartment.

Draco wasn't sure what was wrong with him. Sometimes it seemed like his mouth and brain weren't actually connected to one another.

He grunted instead of answering her.

"What happened exactly?" Pansy turned to Crabbe and Goyle who had already resumed their task of eating all of the candy in sight.

"Draco was clearly perfect," Crabbe said offhandedly.

"Yeah," Goyle agreed in a tone that left no room for nonsense, yet still sounded ridiculous coming out of his chocolate covered lips. "It's not his fault Potter likes redheads."

"True," Crabbe said. "That redhaired boy is dead meat for letting his nasty little rat bite us, anyway."

Goyle managed to look thoughtful. "I should throw that thing in the fireplace-"

"Shut up about that weasel already!" Draco nearly shouted, only confirming to himself that his brain had no control whatsoever over the words coming out of his mouth.

"So Potter turned you down flat right, then," Pansy said more than asked. "I couldn't really hear what he had to say but I sure heard you making a right fool of yourself. You sounded like my father on a rant about blood pride in there, and I'm pretty sure he hates Potter, so . . ."

Pansy trailed off and held up her hands in surrender under Draco's sneer.

"I thought you were going to like . . . _lie_ . . . impress him or something?" Pansy tried again. "You said you'd even charm whoever was with him? But you flat right told Weasley to his face that his family is a bunch of broke sods who are only good for one thing: the magical population."

Draco sighed.

"Not that it isn't the truth, but . . . what happened?"

"I was . . . surprised," admitted Draco, "I was under the impression I had never met Potter before. And I wasn't expecting it to be another pureblood with him. Ugh, Weasley! I figured these two knew all of them by now, but I forgot there were a few purebloods who don't reside within our families' social circles."

"Wait - rewind, you _have_ met Potter?" Pansy asked, clearly excited.

Draco nodded.

"Now who's keeping their big mouth shut? Spill, you!" Draco proceeded to tell her about his trip to Madam Malkin's in which he met a little boy with glasses who had clearly hated his guts. After recalling the tale, Draco distinctly remembered being embarrassed that time as well.

"How did you know he hated you? Were you mean to him?" Pansy asked.

"No!" Draco protested. "He ignored me! Everytime I tried to talk to him he looked at me like I was stupid! So obviously I kept trying to sound smarter. Well, I see now it's because he was probably too slow to even understand me. I mean honestly, sitting with a _Weasley_? No! Siding himself with a Weasley, is what he did. Who in their right mind would do that to themselves?"

"Maybe you just didn't have anything in common," said Pansy, her tone irritatingly reasonable. "He's a halfblood after all and you're as pure as they come. I mean, I've been to your gatherings, Draco, and you still use one of those virgin goblet thingys. I'm pretty sure those weren't even legal when the wizard who designed them was alive."

"It isn't like I just walked up to him and started quoting Salazar, Pansy!" protested Draco. "You can't tell me Harry Potter doesn't have a favorite quidditch team! No. No. Potter just thinks he's too good for the likes of me. Well, we'll see about that, won't we?"

Pansy quickly opened her mouth and shut it again a few times. "I like you," Pansy decided at last, and Draco felt better for the rest of their ride until she suggested stepping into an empty cart to change her robes for the school ones.

"Yes," said Draco, they were all moving to grab them out of their carry ons and Draco should pull his out, too, only he had just remembered what he'd forgotten: to put on clothes underneath his robes. "Pansy," Draco said as she moved toward the exit. "Why are you leaving to change?"

"I don't wear clothes underneath my robes and I don't really fancy all you boys peeping at my knickers."

"I don't wear clothes under my robes either," spat Draco. Pansy gave him an odd look that Draco was too nervous to be annoyed by and opened her mouth but Goyle beat her to it.

"We'll be sharing showers soon, Draco," the boy said.

"Yeah," Crabbe agreed. "Hardly matters to us."

Draco couldn't keep the horror from his face. How had he not realized that he would have to be naked around Goyle and Crabbe? The last thing Draco wanted was for any of the Slytherin boys to be seeing him naked, but the other two spoke like it was unavoidable. Draco didn't understand how he could have overlooked such a huge detail. Perhaps he should have taken up his mother's last offer of schooling Draco from home with the finest tutors-

"Come with me then, Draco," said Pansy, her words breaking into his head like running water.

The other boys seemed to protest but Draco paid them no heed. Changing in front of Pansy seemed much better than the other two. They shuffled into a nearby compartment and once he was sure Pansy was truly busy changing like she said, Draco went about pulling his own uniform robes out and switching them as quickly as possible. Pansy was still done before him and Draco felt himself go hot as she watched him while performing her wrinkle-free charm. Once finished, Draco didn't much feel he had the concentration for magic but mumbled the charm anyway and hid his surprise as all his wrinkles flattened themselves out.

By the time the Sorting feast came around, Draco was in a decent mood again. He certainly hadn't forgot about Harry Potter, but nothing else had gone wrong and he really had no reason to be upset. Even more so when the Sorting Hat called out Slytherin for himself, Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy.

Pasny mingled with the few first year girls at their table while Draco sat with Goyle and Crabbe on either side of him and began to pick at some food once it was served. Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott, two other Slytherin first year boys, sat across from Draco once they'd been sorted and proceeded to try and start a conversation.

"So . . . Draco, right? Draco Malfoy?" questioned Zabini.

Draco nodded. "Yes, and you're Zabini and he's Nott." Draco gestured at Nott then Goyle and Crabbe. "And they're Goyle and Crabbe."

Zabini took a sheepish bite of mashed potatoes.

"Do you actually know our first names?" Nott asked Draco, but he didn't sound as nasty as Draco remembered, just bored. "Or are we not good enough for that kind of thing?"

Draco pretended to think about it for a moment. "No," he drawled at last. "I do know them."

Nott snorted classlessly. "You're just above using them then."

Draco just smirked at Nott, then spoke to Zabini. "In fact, Blaise Zabini, I was actually just talking about you."

"Oh Merlin," Zabini said. "The worm thing?"

"Among others," Draco muttered as he leaned forward and caught Pansy's eye from down the table.

"Oh no," Zabini remarked. "You haven't befriended Parkison, have you?"

"Hmm," Draco hummed. "Pans and I go way back if you must know."

"Pans?" Zabini squeaked.

"Why is that such a hard name for one to grasp?"

After that, Draco's evening was pretty much uneventful. He met a decent ghost named the Bloody Baron. The dead wizard may have been a bit gruesome, but no more than Old Wizard Malfoy on a good day so Draco found it easy to make nice with him. Though he had a feeling he wouldn't be calling for the ghost in any dark hallways at night.

Soon Draco was being escorted by Snape-his head of house, Draco still couldn't believe how lucky he was-back to the Slytherin dungeons. He was dormed with Crabbe, Goyle, and Zabini. Fortunately, Nott was in the dorm across the hall. Draco quickly took to the corner nook of the room. No doubt it would be the coldest spot and Draco would have to do something as soon as possible about the horrid window that only showed the bottom of a muggy lake, but he needed as much privacy as he could get and the ratty old bed curtains would not do it.

"Anyone else opposed to blocking off this awful window?" Draco asked the room at large.

Nope was the unanimous answer.

"Good. I'll sleep here then. Take whichever beds you like and I'll move the remaining one into the nook. Fair enough?"

"Sounds good, Draco," Crabbe said and Goyle nodded, but Zabini just shrugged and took the bed closest to the bathroom.

Once they all had their beds Draco strode over to the remaining one and ripped the bed curtains down and off of it. They looked even more horrid by the time he was done but that was no matter, Draco could have Linky spell them straight again as soon as he got some bloody privacy.

He took the curtains to the nook and proceeded to rip them once more down the middle. He then had to stop to look up a sticking charm, and hoped his pathetic attempt would work at least until he called Linky out to fix the curtains. He didn't bother with the window yet, just stuck half of the ripped cloth to each wall to close off the nook completely. He called Linky out as quietly as he could and grabbed her wrist while holding his pointer finger to his lips in indication for her to be silent.

She nodded and Draco smiled, then gestured for Linky to ward the curtain by pointing at it and tracing the perimeter. Linky snapped her fingers and Draco let out the breath he'd been holding. "So it's warded against sound and entry, right?" Draco whispered.

She nodded. "Okay," Draco said louder, he trusted Linky with much more important and difficult tasks than protecting his privacy. She would do that without having to be told, blindfolded, and with her hands tied behind her back if she had to. "Spell this curtain to stay up no matter what and then transfigure it to open somehow, too-but only for me, and you can pop in, okay? That's it."

She nodded again and snapped her fingers once more. The curtain suddenly looked much sturdier and had a closed slit down the middle.

Draco thanked her and set about giving his other orders while Linky went about snapping her fingers. Draco wasn't sure what his dorm mates were thinking about all the random magic, but Draco hoped they least suspected Linky's involvement. He had Linky move the last bed against the wall and spell up the other side of the curtain to cover the window. Then they set about readying Draco's wardrobe and Linky's keeper. When it was all over Draco had very, very little room-like four by one foot space of pacing ground-but he could work with that. His tiny personal chambers all hidden in . . . _green_.

Draco abruptly demanded that Linky spell the curtains a deep grey, a color every bit as suitable as black but less unforgiving in the darkness of night. Draco hadn't a clue how his mother lived within the heart of the west wing were the all black rooms were. Even Draco's father stayed in the north wing, that was where all the green rooms were.

Draco had been thinking he would have to stack things until he could concentrate enough to properly shrink them himself, but with Linky there she shrank everything he didn't need effortlessly. He grew curious as she shrank his trunk. Would he be able to do it? he wondered over the matter for a bit. Draco remembered the sparks from his wand, the wrinkle, and (albeit horrendous) sticking charm he performed earlier. Perhaps he could . . . but now wasn't the time to try, Draco decided.

He left the confines of his new space only once to use the garderobe. He returned back and spelled his teeth clean before telling Linky to sleep in her keeper, and promptly getting under the covers and falling asleep himself.

He woke in the morning to a voice calling out his name. Even after he realized he was awake Draco swore he could hear a voice saying his name, but when Linky appeared it stopped.

"Good morning, master Draco," Linky greeted and Draco grunted out a demand to ready his clothes for the day. School uniform to go underneath and all, Draco remembered to add. Just like with the manor itself, there were very few rules for Draco to follow with the house elves. One rule, however, was that Draco was not to punish an elf for failing to remember something that Draco himself had failed to tell it. A failure such as this should lie upon Draco's own shoulders alone, because hiding one's failure in the light of their own household was most distasteful, and his father would not have a family that went around beating pathetic little creatures like a bunch of drunken muggles - for no reason, that was. Not that Draco was ever going to beat Linky like a drunken muggle, anyway. Though Draco did not think his mother always followed his father's rules, and Linky was technically her elf still, but that was another matter entirely. Draco shook his head to clear it.

Draco no longer had time for this kind of nonsense. How was he ever going to think? he wondered. With his new schedule, Draco felt like he wouldn't have time for a task so brainless as breathing, and he hoped that the sheer amount of spectacular knowledge he was soon to gain would keep his brain from becoming mush, because his own creative thoughts were certainly being neglected already. His clothes sat neatly folded at the end of his bed for five minutes before Draco forced himself out of bed. He had Linky spell him clean before he stepped out of his night clothes and put the new ones on.

"Master Draco be knowing they have showers?" she asked. Draco nodded and yawned, feeling hot and heavy and even a bit itchy with the layers on.

"Perhaps before dinner," he added before spelling his teeth, and asking Linky for a glass of water and a new hair charm.

Zabini and Goyle both seemed to be showering when Draco went to use the garderobe. Draco had to wake Crabbe up when he came back to the dorm and found that the other boy was still passed out. Breakfast was decent, and the house elves seemed to know to bring him water instead of juice. Draco briefly wondered whether Linky had anything to do with this.

Draco was a bit distracted throughout Herbology with the Gryffindors by his guilt over leaving Linky in her keeper all day, although most of the advice in the "Dealing with Gryffindors" chapter of his journal said to ignore them, so Draco didn't have to try too hard to rile up Potter and his housemates, he supposed . . . today, at least. After all, his mother, who was a bit more, er, magical than most, was the only one who had suggested something a little different.

As far as Draco was concerned, Herbology was a class he would pass with his eyes closed, anyway. So what if he spent the whole time wondering what Linky's room truly looked like and how big it was? Draco had learned the day before it was charmed to look bigger inside, but he didn't check it out for himself because it kind of terrified him. What if Draco got stuck? Hopefully, Linky hadn't been exaggerating for Draco's sake, and the keeper was large enough to house her all day long.

Before lunch, Draco ended up stopping by his dorm to check on Linky. Zabini decided to stop by, too, and Goyle and Crabbe followed Draco, but it wasn't a problem since the privacy wards around his little nook held no matter what. Draco confirmed that Linky had a bed and a bath and access to food at all times while in the keeper so far, though she suspected it may limit her at night in ways.

"There is a door that be leading straight to the kitchens. Linky be loving this. Linky be telling the elves in the kitchen what good master she be having," she announced proudly. "They be liking Linky and offering to help her demanding master anytime he be needing."

Draco flushed the tiniest bit.

"Linky be having their names if master Draco is wanting them . . ." Linky continued after a pause. "But Linky is being so sure she will not be needing help-"

"How about Linky keeps their names and remembers them for me. If we ever need any help from more house elves then you can be telling me, but I have no reason for them yet."

"Yes, master Draco." Linky smiled.

"Has Linky been thinking about master Draco getting new elves all morning?"

"Yes," admitted Linky without pause, after all she couldn't lie to her master. It was pointless to try. "Linky be worrying-"

"Draco be worrying over Linky all morning, too, over the state of Linky's keeper, but we both can stop worrying now and be getting on with our days, hm?"

"Yes, master Draco. Be remembering how you is talking, hm?" she shot back just as Goyle called out that lunch was about to start. Draco didn't bother hollering back, he bid Linky a good afternoon and gathered his books for his next classes before heading to lunch with his dorm mates.

Draco sat through a boring History of Magic class and was then biding his fellow Slytherins goodbye as they left for a free period and he went to the library. His Library Study class consisted of himself, sixteen Ravenclaws, and the bushy haired mudblood, Hermione Granger, who was in Gryffindor.

Being the odd two out, Draco ended up partnered with her on their first assignment. He didn't argue, Draco figured even she couldn't mess up on busy work.

Library Study ended up being his best class that day. He and Granger finished their work in half the time he'd expected and the librarian, Madam Pince, let them leave as soon as they turned it in. Draco was back checking on Linky and claiming a chair in the common room before he even had a chance to feel tired.

The next few days went pretty much the same. He had Library Study every other day for an hour, in which he got to research pretty much whatever he wanted, after they'd finally gotten all the basics of the Hogwart's system down, of course. Draco had no problems learning the system, and patiently sat back and waited when Madam Pince started to drone on about it. Malfoy Manor had a library that was just slightly bigger than Hogwarts, after all. Draco suspected one of his ancestors had taken this into account when stocking their library.

Draco quickly learned he didn't much like Transfiguration, but that was mostly because the classroom had a very funny odor that always made Draco feel like he was about to sneeze. Draco's sneezes were very unfortunate sounding, and he absolutley refused to succum to his urges. The Charms professor annoyed him to no end, but at least Draco had actually learned something in his class, which was more than he could say for some of his other classes. Draco had been majorly disappointed by his Astronomy class. Even years of hearing his own mother bad mouth the professor could not have warned him for that amount of terrible.

He woke every morning to the sound of a strange voice calling his name and could never remember what he'd been dreaming about, but the sound would fade as soon as Linky appeared.

Draco finally would have Potions on Friday morning and he couldn't wait.

As soon as Draco was dismissed from his Transfiguration class he headed straight for the common room to claim his chair. He had seen a seventh year girl lounging on it the night before and proceeded to glare at her until she felt uncomfortable enough to move. It wasn't like Draco would ever talk to her anyway.

Draco shut his eyes for a moment, relaxing back into the chair, and suddenly he heard a deep voice calling out his name again - just like this morning, and every morning since he had arrived at Hogwarts. Draco started in surprise, but no-one in the common room had moved or was even looking at him, yet Draco could still hear the voice calling to him. He could almost feel it pulling him toward it.

Draco thought for a moment, but in the end the unrelenting insistence of the voice won out over Draco's wariness. Draco followed the call. The voice led him to a far corner of the castle, until Draco found himself faced with a locked door. Draco stepped in an alcove and called for Linky. She unlocked the door easily and together they made their way up a long, spiral staircase. Once at the top, they found themselves in a large, and seemingly empty tower, but then Draco looked up and saw a giant dragon looming on the ceiling. He froze. It swooped on to the wall and seemed to be made out of - of the stones of Hogwarts, Draco belatedly realized.

"Young warlock, you have finally deemed to join me," the beast opened with.

Draco gaped.

"Not as cheeky as I'm used to then, I can work with this," the dragon went on.

"How do you know who I am?" Draco asked quickly. "Who trapped you here like this?"

"I know many things and those which I know cannot be helped," the dragon sighed. "And many would have me here in this tower but this castle has held me since it was built."

"Why have you called me here?" asked Draco faintly.

"I have been waiting a long time for you to show up here at Hogwarts, young warlock," the dragon started. "For many years ago it was made that your destiny was to be a great one."

"My destiny."

The dragon nodded.

"Well . . . what is it?" Draco wanted to know, he was already growing nervous in the uncertainty.

"Years ago you were given a gift, young warlock, granted to you for a reason."

"You're kidding . . ." Draco drawled. "What gifts do I have exactly?"

"More than you may ever imagine," the dragon said flatly.

"What? What do you expect me to do?" Draco asked the thing, growing all the more nervous.

"Harry Potter," the dragon said slowly. "He is the one who defeated the dark wizard Voldemort and one day he will save all of Albion again."

Draco raised an eyebrow. "Right . . ."

The dragon chuckled. "Harry Potter will face many threats on his journey, from friend and foe alike."

"I don't really see what that has to do with me. . ."

"There's that cheek." The dragon's smile was devilish. "You, young warlock, are the key to everything. Without you, Harry will never succeed."

Draco waited a second before he gave into his urge to have a proper laugh.

"Ah." The dragon looked knowing now. The look sobered Draco until he was properly irritated. "I see history is doomed to repeat itself after all, if you have made enemies with the other boy already . . . that will soon change," the dragon declared.

"You're wrong!" Draco protested.

The dragon sighed. "There is no wrong. Only what is and what isn't."

"I am never going to save Harry Potter, if that's what you're trying to say!" Draco hissed. "I would rather see him hurt! Dead, even!"

The dragon only smiled, all the more knowingly. "I have been around for many ages, seen many things, and encountered many people. I know what I know, young warlock. None of us choose our destinies, and none of us can escape them."

"But Potter is- is- is a fool at best!" Draco protested.

"Perhaps it is you who is destined to change that," the dragon chuckled. "Trust me, at least once very long ago, far more has been accomplished."

The dragon was starting to disappear back into flat stones, Draco blinked after it.


	5. The Boy Who Loved his Mum

Covered with sweat and nearly falling out of his bed, Draco jerked awake from a terrible nightmare. Only a vague image of the proceedings of his subconscious still lingered in Draco's mind, but it was more than enough to have him on edge in the darkness of his dormitory; even the low glow of a lumos lighting the tip of his wand where he'd left it poking out from underneath his pillow wasn't enough to calm him. Draco called to Linky. The elf didn't appear and after a minute Draco tried again.

After a few failed attempts Draco gave a quick pinch to his own arm to assess his state of mind-he was awake-and then cautiously slid from his bed and tiptoed over to Linky's keeper. He heard muffled noises coming from inside and belatedly realized that Linky was up and punishing herself.

"Linky," groaned Draco, "be stopping that. I think my father must know about the bed sharing. Go back to sleep, no more punishing, and I'll be being fine, I promise. Be seeing you in the morning, Linky."

Draco stood and took a step toward his bed, but stopped short when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He stood there for a minute, frozen, contemplating which was the better option: playing a statue or already-dead. Then Draco thought he heard a noise and responded before he could stop himself. Draco whipped his head around only to be confronted by the mirror-image of himself illuminated in the low wand light with a foul, foul sneer across his face.

Draco shrieked, ran back to his bed and hid under the covers. Draco's mirror always did take horribly to being woken in the middle of the night, and even though that wasn't Draco's fault, he still ran. He wasn't sure if his mirror could actually do him harm or not but, after accidentally waking up his mirror many a night, this was not a risk that Draco was willing to take. The sweat that had covered him after his nightmare had now turned cold so he burrowed under the covers and tried to block out the lingering traces of his fear by thinking pleasant thoughts. Draco was used to doing this at home when he couldn't get to sleep. He had invented characters in his mind-sort of ideal best friends, two of them, and they kept him plenty of company-but Draco grew hot under the thick covers long before he grew tired and was uneasy about sticking any of his limbs out from underneath.

Draco wished he could go find Snape, or even crawl into bed with Goyle, but Draco would risk suffering a wounded pride in order to keep his bullocks and reputation intact.

"Zabini," Draco hissed as he ripped open the other boy's bed curtains. "Wake up."

"Draco." Zabini groaned. "What the hell do you think you're doing-"

"Scoot over!" Draco cut him off.

"Excuse me?"

"I said, 'scoot over!'" Draco repeated.

"No!"

"Come on, you're really going to make me share with Goyle?! The boy can't keep a secret to save his life."

"Fine," Zabini relented. "But this makes us even on the worm thing, Draco."

Draco nodded, sure that he could get much better dirt on Zabini from Pansy anyway.

Draco crawled in, snuggled up to Zabini, and was out in a minute flat.

Draco woke up desperate to pee and snuck off to the garderobes with Linky before anyone else was up. Zabini only grinned at him during breakfast and the rest of the day passed much like any other so far. Draco was now reaching the end of his second week at Hogwarts, and the only day that had been the least bit interesting so far was last Thursday. But Draco wasn't thinking about that.

After dinner, Draco went to Snape's office to ask if he could floo home. Snape refused him flat out, and Draco could hear him muttering under his breath about the amount of days Draco failed to make it without asking to see his parents. Draco decided to leave it for now and to try again next week. After all, Draco needing to talk to his parents was important to him so he didn't really care if Snape thought he was being foolish.

That night Draco left the door to Linky's keeper open, but he woke in the morning to find that she was locked in but able to come out when he called. The next night, when Draco jerked awake from another nightmare, he found that her door was shut and unable to be opened again, so for the second time in as many days Draco retreated to the safety of Zabini's bed.

There were no protests this time, and Draco crawled in and curled up without a word passed between them. However, Draco encountered a problem when he woke much earlier than usual, desperate to pee, and found that Linky was still locked in her keeper. He didn't bother going to reassure Linky, he had already told her not to punish herself when the keeper locked her inside. Draco had even told her it was master Lucius' wishes, because it obviously was his father's doing, if nothing else. He contemplated going by himself, but in the end Draco decided that prodding Zabini in the ribs and waking him up was much easier.

"I have to use the garderobe."

Zabini chuckled. "You're lucky my mum'sa whore, or else I'd be thinking you're requesting one of the cloakrooms," he said tiredly, but it almost sounded practiced. He then ruined the effect completely by yawning widely. "You have my permission to leave if that's what you wanted," he added a moment later.

"I want you to come with me."

"Seriously?" Both of Zabini's eyebrows raised, and he suddenly seemed much more awake.

"Just stand at the door."

For a moment Draco thought that Zabini might refuse, but in the end the other boy exclaimed that he, too, had to piss and would come along. The trip went smoothly, the garderobes just as modest as the showers were, which was decent enough for peeing next to each other fully clothed. By the time they got back to Zabini's bed, Draco was freezing cold. He hopped onto the bed and burrowed under the covers before Zabini had even reached the other side.

Once the other boy was tucked in, he cast a time charm. "We still have a few hours until breakfast, let's go back to sleep," Zabini said, but Draco, who really hadn't been waiting for his approval, was nearly out already.

"You know," Zabini added uselessly, "I really don't think Hogwarts has garderobes."

Draco snorted and promptly fell asleep.

Draco awoke feeling as if his mind was dripping into itself, filling up with images of skin and green and black and boys. He felt good, rested and ready, but then he noticed that he felt a little hot and sweaty, too. And why was he moving so much? Or at all really, when he was supposed to be sleeping? Draco tried to stop himself but his body seemed to hang on to the movement until he finally opened his eyes and processed the sight of Zabini right next to him.

Draco was suddenly hyper aware of two things. The hardness between his legs, throbbing and rubbing against Zabini for one, and the evil grin on Zabini's face for two.

"Zabini," Draco said gruffly, lessening his hold around the other boy's torso. "Why are you letting me hump you, you absolute pig?!" he shouted, after regaining a bit more sense.

Draco stormed off to his tiny bed chambers and gathered up his things and Linky for a shower before breakfast. The idea of rubbing off on Zabini wasn't a bad one, per se, but the thought of actually doing it was absolutely terrifying. Draco paused as he reached the doorway, steam smacking him in the face. Goyle was already showering. Draco retreated quickly, and nearly cursed out loud as he stubbed his toe on the way back to privacy.

As Draco stood there squeezing his aching toe and trying not to cry he realized that the only shower he'd taken in the last two weeks was the hour long one he'd managed the Sunday before last. Draco continued to hop away from the steamy doorway - the dry feeling of Linky's scouring wasn't so bad after one got used to it.

By the time bedtime rolled around again, Draco had resolved never to sleep next to Zabini again. The other boy was obviously as much a sexual deviant as Pansy was and would just lie back and let Draco hump him. No. Draco had Linky sleep with him right from the start this time - he had never had any problems with humping her. He slept through the whole night without nightmares but woke to find that Linky had been sent back to her keeper sometime after Draco had fallen asleep. Draco ignored the problem until a few days later when he awoke from another chilling nightmare and found that Linky was already gone.

Since Draco refused to go back to Zabini, he spent most of the night lying awake, until exhaustion finally took over him and he cried himself to sleep. This became a regular pattern. Draco's dreams were filled with more terror than he had ever experienced at the manor. However, for every night Draco spent restlessly, trying to throw off the last traces of his nightmare, he managed at least two sound ones, a situation that Draco definitely found preferable to the risk of waking up humping Zabini again.

Draco could admit, however, that this didn't leave him in the best of moods, but this wasn't the only thing ruining everyday of his life. No. That was Potter. Draco was doing his best not to think about Harry bloody Potter, but it seemed like everywhere he turned the other boy was there. On the cover of some third year Hufflepuff's magazine, seated next to that weasel in Potions, flying around the pitch like some shooting star, speculated about in the _Prophet_ , laughing from across the great hall, or on the lips of an ancient bloody dragon that was made of stone and trapped in a damned tower.

After a dull day of class, Draco found himself lying on his bed in nothing but undergarments, wondering what to do with his evening. There was only so much time that could be spent sitting in a chair after all. Draco needed something to do, and for the first time in his life he didn't feel like reading.

The most appealing options coming to mind were all to do with Potter and plotting plans, but Draco did not want to give in to them. Draco also thought about going back to see the dragon, but quickly pushed the idea to the back of his mind. That would only lead to one thing: more Potter.

What Draco needed was room to breathe, yet here he was, alone on his bed, as naked as he ever felt comfortable getting, and feeling suffocated.

Suddenly, a high pitched shout of his name rang through the room and someone began to pull at his curtains to no avail.

"Pans." Draco sighed. "I'm not decent. Go away."

"Never," the girl snorted.

Draco sighed again, but rose to gather his robes and let Pansy in. It seemed that today Draco was doomed to play his part as Pansy's distraction. As they sprawled out on his bed together, Draco resigned himself to listening to Pansy spit absolute obscenities about a number of the Gryffindor girls, Granger included, and all the while struggled to bite his tongue. He was dying to open up and let out all he was thinking about Potter.

Before long Pansy seemed to realize that Draco wasn't going to join in on the ranting.

"Okay, you," she started, "what's going on in there?"

"Granger is going to be flat-chested for the rest of her life," conceded Draco, shrugging. "I agree with you there."

"Oh, you know what I mean! What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Pans, just not feeling well."

"Hm. I think you look depressed, not sick."

Draco glared at her.

"What? I know what to look for."

Draco raised his eyebrows. "I'm not afflicted," he pointed out.

Pansy crossed her arms over her chest. "My mother has a bout of the crazy."

"A mental affliction?"

"No!" Pansy hissed.

"Okay, okay," Draco held up his hands.

"She's just a bit . . . moody, alright."

"Well, at least you know what to look for?" Draco wasn't sure what else to say.

Pansy smiled. "So you are pining over dear Potter, then?"

"No!" Draco screeched, a little too loudly.

"I don't believe you," Pansy said slowly, "but we won't talk about it . . . yet. You still have to pay attention to me though."

"I was."

"I know. Thank you, Draco. When you're not being a complete arse you really can be quite the gentleman. Now . . . what do you really think of Granger, then?"

"I think her hair is unique enough but awfully too long to be manageable, for her at least."

"And?" Pansy prompted.

"And . . . her skin and nails are horrid as well. Maybe muggles don't get enough nutrients or something. Potter is kind of a runt, isn't he? And he's only a half-blood."

"Yes, but look at you." Pansy was smirking.

"See, this is why I can't be with you in public. That enormous mouth."

"Aw, Draco, you have to know I wouldn't do such a thing . . . in front of people."

"I don't actually." And that was the truth.

Draco felt much the same way over the next week. Another request to floo his parents outright refused by Snape had Draco livid and nearly shaking with silent anger. One would think he'd be embarrassed, but Draco just felt misunderstood and betrayed. Snape would get his though, Draco would make sure of this. Draco had to, honestly. Who could live with a godfather they resented? Not Draco.

His father would be the easiest option, but would his punishment, whatever it turn out as, be sufficient enough? Probably. However, his mother would be Draco's plan in waiting, but there was no telling what she would deem for a crime such as this. Snape was probably thinking that Draco would be too wary to mention it to his mother. The bastard clearly needed to know his godson a little better.

Plans for revenge distracted Draco for a few days until he received an owl from his father telling him that all would be taken care of by the time holidays came around, and soon Draco was once more lost in a sea of not thinking about Potter. All Draco did was sleep and not sleep, think about Potter and think about not thinking about Potter. Draco did go to class and do homework and eat a bit, but none of that was Draco, not really. He had no say in what he ate or learned, everything was just forced upon him. Draco wanted to use his free time like his housemates did, relax and take showers and make friends, but everytime he thought about doing that he thought about Potter and wanted to - well, Draco wasn't sure what he wanted to do, but he wanted not to think about it anymore so he locked himself in his tiny chambers hidden in grey and got lost far within a part of his mind that Harry Potter had yet to corrupt.

Draco did manage to exchange letters with his parents on a daily basis but it wasn't the same. All he wanted was to go home, he knew that this was impossible but at the very least he wanted to talk to his parents.

Everything was okay, really, but at the same time . . . nothing was okay at all.

One night before curfew, Draco got sick and was taken to the hospital wing. He kept choking on bile so Madam Pomfrey gave him a potion to settle his stomach and left him to sleep. Draco wanted to go home. He just wanted to go home. He never thought he would miss that giant, awful, beautiful, haunted place, yet Draco missed it so much it was making him ill.

Draco had always wanted to get away. He'd made plans to move away to Paris as soon as he finished his N.E.W.T.s. He wasn't some kind of homebound antisocial either, he had stayed at Crabbe and Goyle's houses before and he had been on plenty of trips with his parents, but now he couldn't deny it. He just wanted to go home.

Draco woke in the middle of the night and was sick in a bowl. He cried for an hour when suddenly Madam Pomfrey threw open his curtains.

Draco sat up. "Madam Pomfrey."

"Draco, what is the matter, dear?"

"I just don't feel well."

"What hurts?"

"I'm numb. Everywhere. I just feel sick. I just-I'm fine."

Madam Pomfrey seemed startled and set about casting diagnostic spells with her wand.

"I'll be right back, Draco," she announced after a moment and bustled away into the dark infirmary. Left alone in the faint glow of his own lumos, Draco instantly flopped down and covered himself to his chin with the scratchy sheets, closing his eyes against the unknown.

Ten minutes later she returned . . . with Snape. His godfather glared nastily at him and reached under the covers to pinch the bottom of Draco's feet hard with his girlishly long fingernails.

"Ouch!" Draco hissed, pulling his feet beneath his bum. "You crazy bat!" Draco's mouth really was the worst mouth ever. Or maybe it was his brain, but his brain didn't think so.

Draco probably just needed to get a good night sleep . . . or something. This was what his father had always said to Draco and his mother when they started behaving a bit too irately, at least. Obviously, a good night sleep never worked for Mr. Malfoy though, so . . . it was still up for debate.

Snape's eyebrow rose. "Obviously you are not as 'numb' as you so previously claimed," he drawled after a moment.

"It was a metaphor!"

"Draco . . ." Snape was shaking his head. "I think it's time we have a conversation."

"You think?" Draco stood up and threw on his robe.

"Hold on just a minute, you two," Madam Pomfrey stopped them from leaving. "Numbness aside, that is not the only thing I brought Professor Snape down here to discuss. If you could have a seat, Draco."

Draco rolled his eyes and sat on the edge of the bed.

"How have you been eating, Draco?" she asked him bluntly.

Snape snorted. Draco glared at him. "The food is decent here, actually," he admitted. "Not quite up to my _standards_ , of course, but edible."

"Edible," Snape said slowly, like he was weighing each letter. He'd clearly thought Draco was about to bad mouth his precious Hogwarts cooking. Come to think of it, Draco really should have done just that.

"When is the last time you ate meat?" Madam Pomfrey wanted to know.

"Meat? Hm . . ." Draco thought for a moment. "Last Wednesday I think I had a bit of chicken?"

"Draco," Snape cut in, suddenly all business. "Are you getting any protein at all? Eggs? Beans? Or had any calcium? Or potassium? Anything healthy?"

Draco made a nasty face. "I eat a lot of cheese," he conceded at last.

"Well . . . there you have it, Poppy," Snape deadpanned. " _Cheese_."

With that, Snape was striding out of the hospital wing. Draco scoffed as he followed slowly, refusing to run after the infuriating man. The walk to the dungeons always seemed like a short one, and soon Draco found himself sitting in a cozy chair with mugful of tea that Snape knew he wouldn't drink. Snape eyed him for a moment before sighing.

"You father is quite proud at how well you've been handling this adjustment."

"How well?!" Draco couldn't help but screech.

"Yes." Snape rolled his eyes. "Of course, I haven't told him you've been acting as sour a brat as you always are."

"Go on, tell him then," said Draco, "matter of fact, floo him now and I'll tell him myself."

"Draco . . . you said you could handle it."

"I can," Draco protested. "I just need to talk to them."

"That's part of Hogwarts, Draco, owls only. You are already breaking many rules by having your own house elf-"

"How did you know about that?!" demanded Draco.

Snape eyed him for a moment. "It was I who gave you the yellow present," he finally said.

"You?" Draco hissed. "You're the one who spelled it so that Linky is bound to it at night-"

"I did no such thing," claimed Snape.

Draco scowled.

"Look, Draco . . . your father asked me to present you with a starting gift. When I showed him the keeper, I suspected that he would turn the idea down completely. When he didn't I was surprised. However, it is not surprising to find out that he would take the liberty of placing his own rules upon the gift."

Draco nodded, defeated. This sounded _exactly_ like something his father would do.

"I want to go home, okay!" Draco moaned. "It's nice here and all, but - I don't even know."

Snape raised his eyebrow.

"What if I told you a secret - one that would make staying here worth your while, could you keep it, Draco? Even from your father?"

Draco perked up, but knew it was a lost cause. "I can't keep anything from my father," he pointed out. He'd learned that lesson years ago.

"Ah, but that is part of the secret, Draco. If you _could_ \- would you keep this secret from your father?"

"What do you mean? Are these ugly black pits around my eyes not enough proof of my suffering?" Draco nearly sputtered with incredulity. "Of course! I would keep everything a secret from my father if I could! What are you on about? Do you honestly believe me daft?"

Snape went back to sighing. "Sometimes I am not too sure."


	6. The Worst Destiny Ever

Draco was now convinced that secrets made life better. Even his reflection seemed happier in the days that followed the conversation between Snape and himself. Draco wasn't entirely convinced that his reflection in the mirror was actually an extension of his own personality, but it tended to just _know_ things nonetheless.

After Snape had guided Draco back to the dungeons, he had given Draco a note rolled up in a old potion bottle, which he was instructed not to open until he was well-rested, and told Draco that they were to start meeting for weekly lessons every Saturday after breakfast.

Draco acted like he wasn't secretly thrilled.

The day after this, Draco had Library Study and, instead of leaving right after and running to claim his chair, Draco stayed behind and pulled out the small bottle that Snape had given him. He uncorked it, pulled out the parchment from inside, and laid it out on the desktop.

 _A fruit found in fall_

 _hidden in a dead window to the soul_

 _bares your next move_

Draco snorted. Now Snape was writing poems?

"What's that?" said a voice right next to his ear.

Draco startled nearly out of his chair and righted himself only to find Hermione Granger much too close to him.

"Do you _mind_?" hissed Draco.

"Is that a riddle?" Granger asked, ignoring him.

"It is none of your business, is what it is."

"I bet," drawled Granger, "that I can figure it out before you can."

Neither of them were a step closer to solving the stupid thing fifteen minutes later. Draco was beginning to think Snape had just jotted down dragon dung to keep Draco busy for a few days.

"A fruit found in fall . . ." Granger was repeating for the thousandth time. She really was worse than Draco's father with that. "That could mean lots of things."

They both decided to give up on the riddle for now and Draco had to force himself to stop thinking about it and finish his homework before dinner. When Saturday rolled around, Draco was no closer to breaking the riddle. If that was even what it was. Surprisingly though, at their meeting, Snape didn't mention it. Instead he barely said anything and played the violin while Draco tried to 'clear his mind.'

Another week passed and Draco was surprised to see Halloween decorations popping up around the castle. He hadn't even realized that the holiday was only a few days away. At home, Halloween was Draco's favorite holiday. He didn't know yet if it would be special at Hogwarts, and mostly wondered if his mother would still decorate the manor without him there. As if reading his mind, Draco's mother owled that day and explained all about the new pumpkins she just had the elves spell up.

Besides one more lesson with Snape, which passed almost uneventfully as Draco spent it playing an awful-looking transfigured piano, the following few days passed in a blur of studying for his first quizzes, reading a book titled 'The Basics of Buddhist Meditation' that Snape had given him, and thinking about falling fruit and soul windows.

On the day of the Halloween Feast, Harry Potter was sent a broomstick during breakfast and Draco was beyond outraged. He lost his resolve for a moment and dragged Pansy into an abandoned classroom while Crabbe and Goyle stood guard.

"What's next?" Draco shouted. "Harry Potter smuggling in illegal dragons to make a little spare coin?!"

"Probably." Pansy just shrugged. She was no help at all.

Later in the day, Draco found himself in Library Study ignoring Granger's pointed looks, not wanting to think, let alone talk to anyone. Draco rested his head on the desk for the last few minutes of class and the next thing he knew he was being suddenly jerked awake by a deep, persistent and familiar voice calling his name.

He groaned loudly and heard Madam Pince shush him from the other side of the library, though she said nothing when Draco stood to leave. Granger called his name on the way out but Draco didn't bother to stop and placate her.

Draco paused when he reached the door to the dragon's tower. He wasn't really sure if he wanted to call Linky to let him in. On the one hand, Draco wanted nothing more than to go in and talk to the fascinating creature. On the other, Draco wanted least of all to start thinking about Potter again.

Draco wasn't sure what was wrong with him, but Harry Potter was no longer a poster boy for Draco to hang up on his wall and sometimes gossip about. He hadn't a clue what changed, but Draco wasn't just interested in the Boy Who Lived. Draco now despised Harry Potter more than he ever knew it was possible to despise someone. He felt so much dislike toward the boy that it hurt him inside.

Draco resolved to ignore the call, but when the feast grew nearer and the dragon was still tugging on his brain, Draco decided he wouldn't let Potter ruin his favorite day. He would just see what the dragon wanted. Maybe Draco could use whatever he learned against Potter somehow. In Draco's journal, Snape had written about a fascinating little game called Bait-the-Gryffindor that Draco had given in and played with Potter when the boy had once pushed him too far. Though one midnight duel could hardly suffice as revenge for Potter being such an infuriating git.

No. Potter would be getting much more of that.

Only . . . he wouldn't, because Draco _wasn't_ going to spend all his free time thinking about Harry Potter. Which was why Draco had been pushing that day far from his mind, he reminded himself. Yes. Draco would just tell the dragon to shut up please and thank you.

The dragon was smirking when Draco and Linky finally made it to his tower, almost as if he knew exactly what Draco had spent the whole walk there thinking about.

"You called?" Draco asked.

"How are you, young warlock?"

"Not friends with Harry Potter, if that's what you mean." Understatement of the year, Draco added silently. Draco scowled as a vision of Harry Potter soaring toward the ground on his broomstick played through his mind.

The dragon raised his hairless eyebrows. "The time I speak of approaches, young warlock. You must warn the crow of the danger that stomps these passageways as we speak, or Albion may never be whole again."

"The crow? You mean Snape?"

The dragon sneered and disappeared. Draco figured his godfather received this reaction a lot though.

On his way back to the dungeons to change before supper, Draco thought a lot. He figured he should never try to explain the dragon-on-a-wall thing to anyone, least of all Professor Sense. He had no reason to help Potter anyway. Draco had decided not to tell Snape anything of what the dragon had told him, but then, lost in thought, Draco happened upon Professor Quirrell nearly being eaten alive by the nastiest beast he'd ever seen. After silently freaking out for a moment, Draco power-walked to Snape's office to tell him about the troll, and then headed to the feast and kept his mouth shut and head down just like his professor had suggested, still too shocked to realize what he'd just done.

The next day it was rumoured that Potter and his weasel had killed three trolls all by themselves. Draco hadn't a clue what warning Snape had to do with anything, but he decided that he should never have told Snape anything and let the troll kill Potter instead.

Stupid dragon.


	7. Occlumency

"Granger is the dirtiest witch I have _ever_ seen!" hissed Draco, throwing off his robe and flopping on his bed. "A filthy, filthy thing!" he groaned into his pillow.

"Oh yes, I saw how she was all buddied up with Potter and his weasel, too," claimed Pansy, as she sank down next to Draco, her knees somehow managing to dig painfully into his ribcage.

"And you're a whore!" Draco declared and shoved her off the bed.

"That is it!" Pansy shrieked and Draco was grabbed by his hair and yanked onto the floor as well.

A minute later, Draco was beneath Pansy with his nipple between her fingers.

"Ouch! Stop!" he hissed, slapping her away to no avail.

"You have been an insufferable prat for the past week! But calling me a whore is the last drop in the cauldron, Draco! I may be a lot of things but I am not jealous. Now, you! You-the sissiest boy I have ever met by the way-are jealous. You, sweetie, are the definition of jealous!"

Draco sputtered.

"That's what I thought!" Pansy crowed and spared Draco's nipple in favor of hopping back on his bed. Draco scowled up at her chipper form. He was in no mood for her games. The urge to start ranting about Potter and his merry band of Gryffindors was stronger than ever, but Draco bit his cheek to keep anything else from slipping out.

"I am not jealous of that mudblood," he announced at last, still on the floor.

"I was only joking . . ." said Pansy, not sounding like she had been joking in the slightest. "Now, how's that house elf of yours with beauty charms?" she asked quickly.

Draco scoffed and set Linky loose on the girl.

A few days had passed since, as what Draco liked to call it, the Draco-should-have-kept-quiet-and-let-Potter-be-eaten-by-a-troll incident, but the uncomfortable feeling of pure hatred in Draco's gut hadn't gone away. It was a very distracting feeling.

Of course, this meant that on his next lesson with Snape the professor actually wanted to do something besides play musical instruments, but Draco had a hard time concentrating. Snape had asked him to think back over the past few lessons and remember each and every thought he'd had while he'd been listening to or playing music.

Snape had ended the session an hour early, claiming that Draco was purposely being as irritating as possible.

In fact, Draco had been, but he regretted it a few hours later when he was once again doing nothing but sitting in his chair and biting his tongue to keep Harry Potter's name from his lips.

The only good thing November brought was cold weather, Draco thought, which he didn't particularly like, but anything was better than the heat. Though Draco did start to feel better as the days passed. They were finally learning some new and interesting things in Transfiguration and Charms, which was a huge distraction considering Draco's magic had seemed to blossom since he arrived at Hogwarts. For the first time since he could remember, whether he was focused or not, Draco felt like he had his magic at his disposal.

It wasn't that his magic hadn't worked before he'd arrived at Hogwarts, it was just a . . . rare occurrence for Draco to have much success at spell casting beyond the basics. His father attributed it to Draco's lack of concentration at first, then later his lack of confidence. As much as Draco hated to admit it, he'd believed his father was right. His father was _always_ right.

But . . . maybe not, since Draco was obviously not focused these days and yet was able to perform most magic almost thoughtlessly.

Or maybe his father was just hiding something. Draco thought this was more likely, but he hadn't a clue what it could be.

More time passed, and Draco spent the days studying and the afternoons sprawled out on his bed with Pansy, performing his own hair charms while he watched Linky work her magic on Pansy's hair . . . or nails or makeup.

Two weeks of this and Draco still hadn't fried off his own hair again. Three weeks and Pansy let him do her hair. Surprisingly, Draco didn't screw it up . . . even though he'd half been hoping he would. His magic really was working, it seemed.

All was well until the day of the first Quidditch match with Slytherin vs. Gryffindor.

Draco had studiously ignored what Potter had been reading in the proceeding days, even though he'd caught the unmistakable binding on _Quidditch Through the Ages_ from the corner of his eye many times. However, on the day of the match, Draco could no longer put it from his mind. Especially when he woke up to the incessant voice of the dragon calling to him in the morning.

Draco went about his day like there wasn't a pestering beast in his brain, but barely received any satisfaction from it since he still had to go watch Potter, or else deal with Pansy teasing him for a year about missing it. Besides, there was always the chance that Potter might play horribly and Draco wouldn't want to miss that.

From the time Potter kicked off the ground to the time the match ended, Draco went through many highs and lows. It started when Draco confirmed for himself that Potter was playing as seeker. He'd expected as much from the rumor mill, but the realisation still took his breath away. Draco was a seeker by nature, he'd always thought of himself as one. Even before he knew all the positions, Draco had been chasing around snidgets and snitches. Quidditch by oneself could become quite boring without a little, fluttering ball. For the first time in a long while, Draco stared at Potter's form and hadn't a clue what to think or how to feel. Then Pansy accidentally stepped on his toe, and the pain snapped him out of it.

Draco steadily grew more outraged at seeing Potter up there, but he couldn't seem to look away either. That was until a loud roaring split through Draco's skull, causing him to double over in pain and drop his binoculars. He felt the crowd change form, and just knew that Potter was doing something, but the noise in his head kept Draco from looking.

Somehow, Draco also knew that the roaring noise was the dragon's doing and vowed to get him back someway. This, of course, was when Draco was distracted by something else - Hermione Granger was setting professor Snape's robes on fire a few feet below him. Draco blinked.

Draco could hardly believe his own eyes. In the face of such an absurd sight, Draco forgot all about the pain. He watched as she scooped the fire up and, by the time Draco realized she was actually going to get away with it, she was . . . well, getting away.

The noise in his head had stopped completely and the crowds suddenly went wild, but Draco barely noticed as he took off after Granger. She seemed to be making her way back to the weasel, until Draco caught up and dragged her away from the commotion.

"I saw that," he chuckled against her ear as his arm came around her shoulder to guide her back toward the castle.

"Ma-Malfoy," Granger sputtered, and they slipped away completely unnoticed.

As soon as she regained some sense, Draco was thrown off. "You didn't see anything!" she claimed and began to stomp back toward the stands.

Draco righted himself and stepped in her path. "Oh, but I did," Draco pointed out and couldn't stop a devilish grin from eating his face. Granger audibly swallowed and Draco instantly felt better than he had in months. Joy washed over him and it felt great. He started to laugh at her expression before he could stop himself. This instantly made her scowl instead, and she quickly scanned the area before grabbing his hand and pulling him further off, Draco still chuckling gleefully.

"Look, you can't tell anybody!" Granger pleaded when she deemed them far enough away.

This sobered Draco considerably. "Why couldn't I?" he asked.

"You just can't!" Granger shouted.

"Would your life be over or something?" Draco smiled.

Granger moaned pitifully and made to speak again but suddenly cut herself off as her eyes narrowed on something behind Draco's shoulder.

"Granger?" Draco snapped his fingers in front of her face and she only blinked.

Draco sighed and looked behind him but didn't see anything except trees with some decorations on them.

"All the other decorations are put up," Granger muttered and suddenly it all clicked, Snape's riddle jumping to the front of Draco's mind, and then he was running toward the tree line with Granger on his heels.

They reached the tree at the same time. It was the biggest one and the only one with a pumpkin floating inside the giant hole in the trunk.

"Do you think . . ?" Granger started but Draco already had his wand out, items floating toward him. Instead of a candle inside the pumpkin, there was a jar of glowing liquid and, as soon as he removed it, the decorations began to disappear. Draco quickly pocketed the item before Granger could read what its tag said.

"Seriously!" Granger moaned, sounding more distraught this time than she had over her own reputation. "You wouldn't have found it without my help!"

Draco raised an eyebrow. "Consider us even then," he sneered a moment later and then stomped away.

It turned out that Draco had missed Harry Potter catching the snitch . . . with his mouth. He imagined the unfortunate-faced boy would have looked much like a tree frog while doing it.

Draco did well to push Potter out of his mind for awhile after that. He had Snape's latest riddle and his upcoming trip home for Christmas on his mind. Draco actually found himself feeling bad for the other boy. After all, Draco couldn't even imagine what it would be like to have to stay at Hogwarts the whole holiday. Draco would probably die . . . not that he was about to tell Potter this.

When the dragon next called him, Draco wasted no time before stomping off toward him, ready to tell the creature exactly what he thought about all these mind games. It was only when he was halfway to the tower did Draco realize the call was pulling him in a different direction. Draco contemplated not going toward the call, but in the end his curiosity won out. Besides, he could always send his own call to Linky anyway.

The pull stopped when Draco reached a room that was empty except for a large, ornate mirror. He cautiously approached the thing, wary of such a large area for his unpredictable image to roam. This was when Draco noticed that he wasn't alone, Harry Potter was standing right behind him. Draco whipped around but the room was empty. He frowned and turned back to the mirror. Now Potter was laughing at him in the reflection. Draco instantly blushed bright red despite not knowing what was happening. Reflection-Potter only laughed harder, swinging his arm around Draco and basically rubbing their faces together.

Draco suddenly got a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach and looked up. As he read the words engraved at the top of the mirror the feeling grew worse until Draco was violently sick on the floor and fled from the room.

Bloody stupid dragon! Draco silently cursed the thing all the way back to the dungeons and then pushed the incident far from his mind before falling asleep without dinner.

The next morning, Draco had a lesson with Snape in which he finally began to make some progress. Draco believed his improvement was based on the fact that Snape actually deigned to answer a few of his questions, and not his own concentration level, which was terrible.

"What I'm attempting to teach you, Draco, is the power of knowledge and the ability of being well acquainted with each and every thought that passes through your mind. Am I making any sense at all?" Snape sighed.

"Actually . . . yes. Although I don't see why anyone would ever want to acknowledge their deepest desire." The words had left Draco's mouth before he'd really thought about them. "Or fear . . ." he added a moment late.

Snape narrowed his eyes in suspicion and Draco realized his mistake. "You have been wandering places you shouldn't? That is certainly unexpected behavior."

Draco raised an eyebrow. "So you have been there, too. What did you see in the mirror, Professor? Only if you tell me will I ever admit to what I saw, even to myself. That information could only ever hurt me."

To Draco's complete bemusement, Snape smirked and pulled out a pensieve that Draco had seen a few times before.

"Shall we?" Snape drawled. "Experiencing another's memory will only help what I'm desperately trying to accomplish before holiday, lest your father murder me for even trying."

"Seriously? Yes! I can only imagine . . ."

Snape was still smirking, but knowledge never really could hurt anyone right? Draco wondered over the matter for a moment before accepting.

Five minutes later, Draco horribly regretted his decision. He was spiraling out of a memory of Snape standing in front of the mirror, his reflection flanked by two nearly nude women. The woman on the left had had red hair and green eyes and Draco thought he had faintly recognized her.

The other woman had been Draco's own mother.

"Oh Merlin, I'm going to be sick," Draco complained as soon as he was completely free of the memory.

"Your turn," Snape chucked.

"Fine. But at least tell me who the other woman was!" Draco demanded. "Mine is way worse than yours and I need some sort of compensation!"

Snape actually paused and eyed him for a long moment, but in the end drawled, "it is none of your business."

Then Draco was having his memory pulled away and was soaring into the nasty brain world water once more, standing next to his godfather as he watched the events of last night unfold. For some reason, the dragon's call wasn't in Draco's memory, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Soon Draco tensed as he watched himself creep into the room which held the mirror. A few moments later and it was clear for both of them to see again, Draco's greatest desire was to be . . . best friends with Harry Potter.

Draco groaned as they returned once more to Snape's office.

"This is going to be much harder than I thought." Snape went back to sighing.

"What do you mean?" Draco frowned.

"I take it you think about Potter a lot . . ?"

Draco shrugged and looked away. "I don't see what that has to do with anything."

"Draco," Snape started, suddenly all business. "Have you read the book I gave you? And all the passages I wrote in your journal?"

Draco nodded.

"We should be ready to start today then . . ."

Draco resisted the urge to start shouting inarticulately. "Yes. Let us. Please."

Snape suddenly pointed his wand and cast a spell Draco had never heard before that caused Draco to feel like his mind was ripped wide open, but as soon as it started, it was gone.

"Did you feel that, Draco? That is the spell your father uses to see what's in your mind."

"I don't think so," Draco pointed out superiorly.

"Of course, you would never feel it unless you had as many years learning to look for it as your father spent learning to hide it. However, you do not have to feel it to keep him out of your mind, though once you learn to feel it, things will become much simpler."

Then Snape had stood and pulled out his chalk, and Draco was the one sighing, taking out his notes and quill. It was an hour later but Draco had learned the relationship between Legilimency and Occlumency, and all the magical properties used when performing either. Draco still wasn't quite getting it though, how he was supposed to do magic without any type of spell, and he'd asked Snape as much.

"Do not think of Occlumency as a spell, Draco, when it is a magic as natural as breathing, and exhausts very little of one's magical core. It's all mental."

"So . . . you were saying that if I have all my thoughts in order they will be easy to hide?"

Snape didn't look impressed, but he didn't look angry that Draco had put this together either.

"There are two ways of learning Occlumency," Snape explained. "The get-out-of-my-head-I'm-an-angry-Gryffindor way, or the right way . . . you will be learning the right way. It is not enough just to keep your father out of your mind. You must also keep your father from knowing that you have used Occlumency at all. So the answer to your question is both yes and no. I'm saying that if you have all your thoughts in order it will be easier to hide only that which needs to be hidden."

"Oh . . . that . . . makes sense. You mean . . . like a place."

Snape frowned. "I don't see-"

"No. No," Draco cut off Snape. "I see it now . . . a manor!"

Draco lurched to the ground and began digging through his bag, until he found the book he was looking for, a copy of _Meditation Around the World_ that he'd checked out from the library a few days after this whole endeavor with his godfather began. He'd completely forgotten about it, but he just remembered something particularly interesting he'd seen in the table of contents.

"Ah hah!" Draco cheered, and swiftly took his exit without another glance in his professor's direction.


	8. The Manor

The first thing Draco did after stepping out of the floo into the familiarity of his manor was to chuckle gleefully and take off toward the South wing. He heard his parents laughing at him, but Draco felt like he couldn't stop until he reached his bed, and he only did then because he'd full out jumped and landed flat on his belly with a whoosh, his face and limbs stretching out and tangling themselves in the fluffy softness he hadn't felt in so long. Draco realized he was breathing hard, and knew his mother would throw a fit and have a potion down Draco's throat in seconds if she saw how hard, but he stuck his face even further into the bed and breathed deeply anyway. It smelled so right and perfect and clean and nice, and it was his bed, and Draco realized he'd been a little worried nothing would be the same when he returned.

Draco felt the smile on his face and rolled over. Luckily, the new air flow had Draco's lungs calming down to a point where he wouldn't need a potion or risk passing out. He found that he could roll four times back and forth across his bed before hitting either edge and started to laugh hysterically. How had he even slept on that tiny old bunk? Draco wondered.

He still couldn't believe it. Draco was home.

It had taken a lot of effort, but Draco managed to avoid Snape for nearly a week after he'd ran shouting out of their lesson. It had been worth all the effort though, Draco thought, when he'd seen Snape's face last Friday morning.

After his revelation, Draco realized Snape had been making things a lot harder than they needed to be. He'd spent the next week locked up in his tiny chambers whenever he could, practicing what his book of Meditation had called the 'loci-method.' Pansy was furious at losing her beauty time with Linky, and proceeded to camp outside his curtain for hours at time, prattling on uselessly which she knew Draco hated. Draco didn't give in though, just had Linky spell the curtains silent from both sides and went back to his work.

By the time double potions had rolled around, Draco had been able to show up with nothing in his mind but the image of the nude redheaded woman from Snape's memory. After seeing the look of horror on his professor's face, Draco decided that this was one of the best things he had ever done. Of course, Draco had carefully taken the image of his almost-nude mother and tucked it far into his mind-dungeons where it would never be found. That was the last thing Draco wanted anyone seeing, let alone his own father.

The double potions class had been a first experience that left Draco beaming with pride. Draco had felt Snape's eyes on him throughout the whole lesson, but managed to keep everything besides potions locked inside his own head. Even as Draco had stolen glances at Potter and new memories of the other boy streamed in, Draco had never faltered, tucking each thought away in its place before Snape had even realized they'd been there. Well, Draco had assumed by Snape's pinched frown that he hadn't let anything through.

After class, Draco had been asked to stay behind and, with a sneer in the direction of Potter's stupid, stupid absolutely unfortunate-looking dumbfounded expression, he'd huffed a great huff and rolled his eyes, staying put as the others filed out. Snape had told Draco that it wasn't a bad first try, but Draco was ignorant if he thought that anyone who actually knew him would believe the only thing on Draco's mind during potions class had been potions. Even though he'd realized Snape was right, Draco's mood hadn't soured any. It had been an easy fix.

Draco wanted absolutely nothing to ruin the next two weeks he'd be spending in the manor and, if it weren't for his new Occlumency skills, then Harry Potter surely would have.

Draco found it was much easier to forget about Potter when he was at the manor. After calling Linky out of his coin purse, Draco had left her to unpack their things and, after an hour long bath, he spent the day being reacquainted with all his possessions. He spent three hours in the large room above his own, which his parents had remodeled as a secret room for him to use as he pleased. Both of his parents had secret rooms above their rooms, too, and Draco was pretty sure that Snape didn't even know about them. Draco spent a while flying, but soon found himself getting angry that he wouldn't be able to bring a broom back with him to Hogwarts and promptly put the stick back in its place on the wall. This was when Draco saw what was hanging up next to it. His slippers.

Draco eyed the things for all of two seconds before grabbing them and dashing to his changing stalls in the corner of the room. There Draco found a pair of clean stockings and long vest already laid out for him. Draco smiled, Linky knew him so well.

After striding to the bar and stretching, Draco spent the rest of his time in there dancing and watching himself in the mirror. His image never messed about when Draco danced. He took this as the highest compliment.

Then he went to the reptile room and fed his dragon some crickets. The little lizard had probably grown four inches since Draco last saw it, and this made him a bit wary of sticking his hands in the cage. He had just gathered the strength to reach in and stroke its bumpy head when a crack of someone apparating startled him and he stumbled off the stool he'd been standing on. Luckily, it wasn't Linky or another one of his mother's elves. It was Wayne, his father's elf, who merely grimaced a bit, helped Draco up, and brushed him off all without touching him.

"Dinner is serving itself in a quarter hour, young master," he announced and then was gone. Draco's father had started having the house elves tutored in speech when he first found out about Draco's impediment. When his mother heard of the ploy, she refused to let any of the Black elves participate in such nonsense. Of course, Linky being his mother's favorite elf basically made his father's plan irrelevant, but this didn't stop his father from going through with it.

Like his mother, Draco found it ominous.

Draco needlessly brushed himself off and exited the room. His family usually took dinner in the blue dining hall, and all the blue rooms were in the South wing. Draco's room had been a blue room, but upon request his mother had spelled it purple when Draco was four. In the blue corridor, Draco caught sight of something that made him pause. It was a portrait he'd seen a thousand times before, but this time something was different.

The subject, Owen, was sleeping, but he usually was. Draco had known Owen since he could remember. The man's portrait was spelled up all over the manor in random places, but instead of his name under them like all the other portraits, Owen's titles were either blank or said 'blood-traitor.' When Draco asked his father about it, he had told Draco that the portraits of Owen had been cursed to never come down, and this was the only reason they hadn't been burnt to non-existence.

Draco figured that he wasn't supposed to like Owen, but had never found a reason not to. Though he never let his parents catch him in the act of chatting with Owen's portrait.

This time, however, Draco felt like it was the first time he'd ever seen the man, and couldn't quite stop himself from gaping.

"Owen!" hissed Draco, and the man in the portrait woke with a start, his spectacles nearly falling off his face in his haste to right himself.

Owen blinked a few times then seemed to register who it was shouting at him. "Draco!" he beamed. "Long time, no see! I thought I told you to look for me at Hogwarts!"

Draco had completely forgotten, but couldn't really feel guilty . . . not when he was still so confused.

"You look like the Boy Who Lived!" Draco exclaimed, dumbly. "I mean, you could be his twin!"

"Maybe I am the defeater of your family's most recent terrible choice in all powerful Dark Lords," drawled Owen, smirking. "You hardly know my life, child."

"Too bad you're like 800 years old."

Owen scoffed. "I am not a day over twenty-five, thank you very much."

"Owen."

"Fine," the portrait sighed. "If you must know . . . I was a Potter."

"Was?" Draco frowned. Portraits didn't speak in past tense even if their subjects had died.

"Before I became a Malfoy."

Draco frowned harder. "But that makes no sense. How did you become a Malfoy?"

"Through marriage, of course."

"But . . . you're a wizard," Draco felt the need to point this out. "Your name wouldn't have changed."

Owen let out a small laugh. "Even though Narcissus had been the 'witch' in our relationship, he was still a Malfoy. Besides Narcissus Potter?" the portrait mused. "He would have eventually murdered me in my sleep had I insisted he took my surname."

The information left Draco dazed as he strolled toward the blue dining hall, he was still mulling everything over when he reached the threshold, and hadn't been thinking about much else. It was only when he looked up to find his parents staring back at him did Draco realize that Occlumency was the last thing on his mind.

Draco froze and opened his mouth, but figured that whatever was going to fall out of it would make things even more awkward, and he opted to dash back to his room as quick as possible without a word. Luckily, Draco was known for such nonsense, and his parents laughter was all that followed him.

It didn't take long to sort himself out, but this did not mean that his absence was disregarded. As soon as Draco sat down, his father asked him what he'd been doing.

"Forgot something," Draco said quickly and took a huge gulp of water, he hated lying. Draco had never told too many lies, and he didn't dare lie to his father. The only time he'd lied to his mother was when his father had asked him to and, even then, Draco had been on edge for months, waiting for something bad to happen because of their lie. It never had, but Draco wasn't fooled. The anxious feeling deep inside of him that wouldn't go away was enough to have Draco believing all the tales he'd heard as a child. Bad things even happened to little fluffy woodland creatures who were liars.

His father raised a brow, but then dinner was served. Draco always wondered if he had Linky to thank for these kind of saves. He could picture her up in the kitchen now, claiming her self made title as elf in charge, and snapping her fingers if she heard things becoming particularly awkward. Draco loved his elf.

This was every thought that Draco let his father see, and he somehow just knew his father was seeing them.

Despite Linky's possible attempts at making the dinner pleasant, it quickly turned anything but that when his father looked to Draco with a calm face and announced, "so . . . your mother and I have been discussing your request to have Parkinson's daughter over for the New Year."

Draco blinked and sat his fork down, his bite of mashed potatoes still on it. He looked between his parents, their expressions were much too flat, which meant one of them hadn't been happy about Draco's request . . . but which one, was the question.

"We are very happy you have been making new friends, son," his father continued, but Draco felt the need to cut him off there, and since his father had paused to take a drink it wouldn't be considered that rude to do so.

"She's a pureblood," Draco pointed out, not quite sure where he was even going with this argument himself. "I mean, I'm not sure, but I thought-"

His father cut back in. "The Parkinsons are purebloods, son . . . they are just-"

"Poor," his mother finished. Of course, nothing was ever rude when one of his parents did it.

"What your mother is trying to say, Draco, is that no matter how much money we have to spare, you will not be marrying or making any babies with a witch like Ms. Pansy Parkinson. As long as you understand this, then we have no problems welcoming her into our home."

Draco couldn't help it, he laughed, but a moment later resentment hit him like a bludger. "Not that I would ever want to marry Pansy, but . . ."

Draco trailed off, realizing his mouth had gotten ahead of him again. The last thing he wanted to do was start an argument on his first night back.

"But?" his father asked, face still calm. Draco hated his father's calm face more than anything in this world. Besides maybe Harry Potter as a whole.

Suddenly both his father's eyebrows raised and, after quickly filtering all thoughts of Potter back out again, Draco privately let himself acknowledge the realization that his father was surprised at the status of his relationship with Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. Also knowing that all previous thoughts and emotions over Potter had remained sealed tight-for his father's silvery white brows surely would have shot completely off his head-Draco had to wonder over just what it was that his father had to be surprised about. He had to have known that Draco would hate Harry Potter the moment he'd laid eyes on the other boy . . . only Draco hadn't hated Potter at first sight, had he?

His father was definitely hiding something, then. Draco didn't need to fake the rage he was feeling suddenly to cover up his true thoughts.

"She has nice hair, and clothes . . . for being broke, I mean," Draco finally answered, his father hopefully believing that he was still sour about not knowing what was going on and more rules being placed upon him.

"Of course she does, dear," his mother said pleasantly. "They would never have been invited to our parties had they not been able to keep appearances. Your father's family is a good sort, but even the Malfoys aren't saints. They would probably consider anything less than the Parkinsons standing to be just plain rude."

This information did not surprise Draco one bit. His relatives were rather . . . over bearing, on his father's side at least.

Dinner was rather pleasant after that.

However, Draco's life was completely ruined the next morning when he went to spell his hair back into place and ended up frying half of it off again.

Draco had put himself out and shouted random nothings until all the house elves were gathered outside his door, and his mother was softly knocking.

"Go away!" Draco screamed and she did. Not five minutes later was his father strolling into the room.

He pulled the covers off of Draco's head and began to laugh, completely unconcerned and purely iniquitous. Then he called Wayne and asked him to fetch a potion while Draco moaned pathetically, the story falling out of him along with a river of tears. Draco grabbed around his father's waist, forehead pressed hard into his firm belly, and explained over and over again that it had worked at Hogwarts every time.

When the house elf reappeared, Draco wasn't even sure what he'd been crying about in the first place, but barely could stop. Draco drank the potion and his hair began to grow back instantly. Draco looked at himself in the mirror and scowled. "How come you didn't give me this stuff last time?" Draco hissed. "I had to walk around for months looking like a clotpole!"

"I thought you said the look was modish?" his father questioned and Draco hissed at him until he relented and continued. "You were not old enough to be trying such advanced spells last time this happened," his father pointed out. "And it isn't like I let you go out in public . . . much."

Draco narrowed his eyes. "Is this your way of telling me we've got company?"

"Mrs. Beck will be here at noon."

Draco groaned and hid back under the covers. His father chuckled and called on his way out, "I have arranged for Jean to apparate straight here from France the day after Christmas."

"Really?" Draco asked, but his father was already gone.

His father had been serious, but he'd failed to mention that Draco had a lesson with Mrs. Beck every other day for the rest of the break.

Draco hated Mrs. Beck. She was worse than Draco's Great Aunt Malfoy and all of the portraits of his grandmothers combined. She would fuss until Draco was perfectly rigid, his hands sturdy but loose on the keys, only the tips of his fingers touching them, and he better stay that way lest he have a desire to be stabbed in the palms with the floating black quill that followed her everywhere.

Gods, Draco hated Mrs. Beck. Or maybe he just hated playing the piano.

Either way, Draco always had the best, and Mrs. Beck was considered the best in the Wizarding World.

On Christmas Eve, all the Malfoys not in the direct line of succession came from France to visit Malfoy Manor. There was Great Aunt Malfoy, her two children, and their families. Every year it went the same. Draco's mother spent the morning in the kitchen, watching over the elves with her sixth sense that seemed tuned to even the smallest vibrations, and his father spent the morning with two elves following his every step as he roamed the halls pointing out items which needed a better cleaning. Draco spent his morning in his slippers, burning off nervous energy by dancing. For the past few years Draco couldn't help but be nervous for these get togethers.

The first to was arrive was Aunt Malfoy's youngest daughter, her husband, and their two rammy but well-behaved kids, Ace and Alba. Like always, Draco shouldn't have worried. Next to arrive was Cass' family, and the boy looked just as happy to see Draco as ever. Even if his older brothers did not.

Lastly came Great Aunt Malfoy herself, in all her glory, an array of gifts trailing behind her. She glided in, thin and frail and short, at least a foot shorter than every other adult gathered in the pale entryway; she looked gaudy as ever, wearing blinding silver and fur that made one start sweating to even look at. Her hair was white and thin, and literally dusted the floor.

She had always spoiled Draco rotten, so he loved the old witch, he truly did, but . . . Draco was beginning to see what his father meant when he'd said she was the most infuriating lifeform in the universe as she pinched his cheek and proceeded to cover him in red lipstick.

They still had a good while before dinner and the women convened in one of their many galleries while the men and Cass' two older brothers sipped some of his father's best fire whisky in the green lounge. Ace, a little boy of the age of four, decided to stay with his mother which left Draco and Cass all alone, if they could figure how to shake off Alba, who was a six year old witch that insisted on clinging to them every chance she got.

A lady after his own heart, Draco was able to lose her in front of his wall-length mirror.

"We'll be right down these stairs okay, Alba? Juste crier si vous besoin de quelque chose," Draco said and she waved him away. He wasted no time rushing back down to his bedroom where he found Cass spread out on his bed, going through a Quidditch magazine. The other boy had on black robes that were trimmed in blood red, they looked really new, and his hair was as long as Draco had ever seen it, curling around his ears. Cass was the only one out of his brothers who'd failed to pop out with the Malfoy hair, and had black hair like his mother. His eyes were as grey as Draco's eyes were though, and his skin was just as pale and fair.

Draco may have what he needed, Cass all alone, but this didn't make saying what he had to say any easier so he let their conversation drift to Chasers and Falcons and Snitches for a while. Cass loved Quidditch. Draco liked it, but not like he enjoyed some of the other things he'd tried. Though he didn't dare tell Cass this.

Somehow they started talking about Madam Malkin and German chocolate and their respective schools. Cass was in his third year at Beauxbatons, so Draco was thrilled to finally have more in common with the other boy. Eventually they fell into comfortable silence and Draco couldn't hold it in anymore.

"You know how . . . well, when my father . . . you know," Draco blurted and felt his cheeks heating. Maybe he should try saying what he had to say in French, he thought, might be easier.

Cass nodded, his eyes went wide.

"Did your father ever find out about-er-that?"

Cass shrugged but shook his head, no.

"Good . . . that means . . . well, of course . . . it depends?"

Cass raised an eyebrow.

"I just meant . . . you know, we stopped because he would have known . . . and you know?"

Slowly, Cass nodded again, but he still looked unsure. Draco's heart felt as uncertain as Cass' face.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is . . . I can keep my father from finding out this time."

"Vous êtes sûr?" Cass asked, surprised.

"I'm sure," assured Draco, even though his sweaty hands indicated he wasn't sure, at all.

"Que devrions -nous faire?" Cass' eyes were wide and he was breathing hard. Draco felt like his heart was pounding in his throat.

"You remember what we did the last time? Ce qui a fait mon père fou."

Cass nodded jerkily.

"Let's do that." Cass blinked at him, like he wasn't sure what Draco said and, even though he probably didn't have to, Draco repeated the phrase in French.

Cass was nothing but eager after that. Draco had known he would be, but he couldn't shake his nerves. They decided the best area would be on the floor next to the bed. That way they would be covered from the doorway and the stairs, unless the intruder walked about five paces into the room before the boys noticed.

Draco laid down first with his backside on display, a pillow shoved underneath his hips, and his legs bent up and spread wide so he could thrust against the softness. Draco had his robe hiked up, the only item covering him was his thin black underthings. Draco felt cool skin against the backs of his legs and knew Cas had chose to do the same before covering Draco with his own body. They wriggled until they found a spot that worked for both of them, and Cass began thrusting, his hardness pressing fabric into the line of Draco's arse.

It was huge. Draco was sure it hadn't felt so big the last time. Then again, they hadn't done this for three years, and Cass was considered a teenager now. Draco had grown a lot in three years himself. Maybe they really shouldn't be trying this again.

Yet . . . Draco could tell Cass liked it, he gripped tighter and thrust harder and faster, until he was panting.

"These . . . ees . . . wow," he breathed against Draco's neck, and Draco shivered. For some reason he loved the fact that Cass was trying for English in this intense moment. "Does eet . . . do you . . . ees eet . . . ear you heard?" he finally asked, panting, and Draco violently started to twitch as the most intense pleasure he'd ever felt overcame him. When he came to, Cass was a dead weight on top of him and there was wetness on his arse.

"Avez- vous venez aussi? Je veux dire obtenir toute substance blanche sur . . ?" Cass asked a few minutes later, still not removing his body at all.

"It's called semen," Draco replied, even though he was pretty sure he hadn't made any himself. Cass would never know this.

"Oh Merlin! Je vais dire à ma maman vous les garçons se battaient nue en face de moi!" shrieked a voice, right when Draco had thought about pushing the other boy off and straightening himself out.

"Damn!" hissed Cass as he shot up and pulled out his wand, training it on the little girl.

Alba's eyes widened but, like a true Malfoy, she soon turned up her nose and brandished, what looked to be, a fourteen inch wand made of larch.

"Where in Salazar's name did you get that?" Draco asked her, gaping. Cass, he noticed, was speechless, yet still had his wand out and ready. Draco rushed to mimic his cousins.

She smirked. "Eet was a seexth birthday present from your maman, actually. Do you like eet-"

"Obleeviate," hissed Cass, suddenly, and the girl fell silent with a blank look on her face.

"Merlin. Merlin. Merlin!" Draco hissed, not quite believing his own eyes. "What did you go and do that for?!"

They then proceeded to argue for a full minute until Alba cut in, saying, "yes, you are both eediots . . . est le dîner encore prêt?"

They both paused and blinked at her. Then Draco slowly shook his head, no, dinner wasn't ready. She shrugged and ran back up the steps. Draco turned back to Cass and together they began to smile then laugh. Cass came close and kissed him on the mouth. Draco was shocked, because this was something they hadn't ever done. Though Draco liked it more than he probably ever liked most things.

Draco suddenly had a very bad realization and pushed Cass away. "Oh . . . Merlin . . . we messed up." Draco walked over and sat on the bed, not quite believing how stupid he'd been.

"Eet ees fine, Dreco. That ees actually not ze first time I 'av had to use-"

"No, you fool, not Alba. My father. He's going to know about this . . . if he looks in your head, which he will. I didn't think about it. I'm sorry."

Cass only chuckled, "you think that I would have done zis eef I had not mastered a leetle beet of Occlumency myself over ze years, Dreco? Woat? Pensez-vous que je veux juste que personne ne sache que je reçois plaisir en baisant mon bébé cousine?"

"I'm not a baby." Draco scowled and punched him on the arm as hard as he could. "And we are second cousins, anyway."

"Yees, well . . . you are steel a bébé compared to me . . . même si vous pouvez venir maintenant, aussi, et je ne aurais jamais vous laisser seul nouveau, Dreco."

Draco was sure he had never been more happy. He didn't even have to lie and Cass thought he could make semen. "It isn't like my father beats me," sneered Draco, despite said happiness, and Cass shot him a look. "So he spanked me like one time," relented Draco, huffing. "Big deal."

"Steel, I should not 'av left you zat team."

Draco smiled again.

After that, dinner went rather pleasantly and Draco got a lot of presents. There were no lessons on quality over quantity on Christmas Eve.

The next morning Draco woke early, but instead of adventuring with Auror Pendragon for an hour or two like he had everyday so far, Draco had Linky spell him clean and left the room without a glance at the series resting on his nightstand.

He opened a new broom that he would barely ever use (of course), enough new clothing to fill out a wardrobe, and twenty four books. When there was none left and Draco was about to insist that his parents open their own gifts, his father floated in one last present.

It was a small rectangular box that was wrapped in green with a black silk ribbon around it, letting Draco know it was from both of his parents. His father paused before handing the gift to him, looking more uncertain than Draco had ever seen him.

Draco unwrapped it carefully, and could only stare when he saw what was inside.

"Draco?" his mother's voice said.

Draco looked up at her and felt the huge grin begin to take form on his face. He clutched the items to his chest and ran to his mother first, then his father, hugging them and asking if they were really serious.

"Try them on, son," his father chuckled, long fingers carding through Draco's hair, and he realized he was about to cry so he took his father's advice and slid to the floor. He dusted off his bare feet and flexed his toes before carefully sliding each slipper on and tying them up. As soon as he finished, they magically molded to the perfect fit and Draco did start crying.

"I never thought . . ." Draco trailed off. He never thought he'd ever be old enough. He never thought his father would let him. He never thought he would have what it takes.

Draco stood, a bit shakily, not used to the strain it took for pointe slippers, and went through the positions until he got them perfect. His parents cheered.

Draco was so happy that he didn't even get too mad when his father banished all the boxes before Draco could have Linky sneak them off to his room.

Draco still glared at his father. "Are you serious?" he asked. "Bring those back, please, father."

"No."

Draco tried to look very angry, knowing if he pouted his father definitely wouldn't give them back. "Fine. I don't even want them that much anyway," he spat.

Mr. Malfoy sighed and waved his wand, two of the boxes appearing back in the air between them. "You need some kind of therapy," his father claimed, looking extremely unpleased.

He could deal with this compromise. Draco just beamed at him, grabbing the boxes out of the air before running up back to his room.

Snape came over for Christmas dinner and Draco was finally able to claim his revenge. After eating, presents were exchanged, and Draco was a bit miffed, thinking that his father had forgotten about him. This, of course, was when everything took an interesting twist.

Draco went first, receiving more bloody potions ingredients from his godfather, and some new robes from his parents. Snape got his mother some kind of stupid flower that Draco would have to look up later, considering what the man's deepest desire had been. Snape gave Draco's father one single blood-flavored lollipop. Draco presented Snape with a potion for shaping hair, which Snape immediately banished while sneering in Draco's direction. When Snape received the same exact thing from Draco's father, he fried the bottle into non existence with a roll of his eyes. Draco was pleased, thinking that was it. It wasn't. His mother had apparently heard and decided to get in on things as well.

His mother went last, handing over a small, flat box wrapped in midnight blue silk. Snape opened it carefully and blinked, hard, for a few long minutes at what had been inside before slamming the thing on the ground and disapparating.

"Well . . ." Draco chuckled gleefully, running over to pick up the item. "I've got to see that."

He scooped the item up and paused, making sure all his thoughts were in order before he acknowledged what he was thinking. The man staring back at him through the busted frame looked just like a Potter. He sneered back up at Draco, arms across his chest.

This was how Draco found out that James Potter, Harry's father, had been Snape's worst enemy . . . and here Draco had been thinking his godfather was being extra petty and rude to Potter just for Draco's sake. The selfish bastard.

The next morning Jean arrived, and Draco was still too excited to feel disappointed when she announced he was not to practice pointe more than ten minutes a day for the next six months.

Draco loved Jean, she was a gift from the Gods. She may not be the best dancer in all the Wizarding World anymore, but she was still the best instructor, which was why wizards and witches alike were dying to get a lesson with her even though she was going on one hundred and seventy-five and usually sat in a chair the whole time. By the end of their first lesson though, Draco was silently cursing the witch.

"It is your own fault, Draco, for letting yourself get so out of shape," she commented, not seeming concerned in the least. "I only see three holes."

"What!" Draco shrieked, stopping in place and checking for himself. Sure enough when his legs were pressed together, there were only three gaps and four touching areas. "It isn't my fault my wizard package keeps getting bigger!" Draco announced, not even blushing. It was just Jean after all.

"Tuck better." She shrugged. "Now, I want to see twenty fouettes in a row before we break . . ."

She spent two hours the next day showing Draco how to heal his own feet without removing the important calluses needed for pointe, and Draco remembered why he loved her all over again.

The day before New Years Eve, Pansy arrived by floo, an overnight bag over her shoulder. She would be staying until New Years day after the Malfoys' annual party.

Draco spent the morning showing Pansy around, but eventually a house elf came to remind Draco that his lesson with Jean was growing nearer. The elf asked if Pansy would like to go and meet the Misses Malfoy until Draco was finished, but he was wary of leaving Pansy and his mother alone together without seeing how they interacted with each other first. Draco also knew Jean would not go for him missing over the next couple days, not when he'd gone so many months without any practice, but Draco didn't quite know if he trusted Pansy enough to let her watch him dance.

Draco normally loved showing off, but this was probably the hobby Draco held closest to his heart and he didn't want anyone to try and ruin it for him with their big mouth.

Draco decided to take a chance. "Didn't you know, Pansy, I am quite talented in the fine art that is ballet - no, no, hush now or I will have to kill you . . ."

Pansy was actually quite speechless by the end of his lesson. Draco took this as the highest compliment.

"You were beautiful, Draco . . ." the girl muttered at last. "Damn. That is messed up!"

Draco only grinned. That night, Pansy snuck to his room after the lumos went out, nearly giving Draco a heart attack, and proceeded to announce they were having a sleepover. They stayed up nearly half the night talking and laughing, not at each other, but with each other. Draco wanted to tell her about Cass, but knew he couldn't while she was staying at the manor. Instead he settled for something else.

"I think I know what you meant now," Draco admitted. "When you asked if I liked boys."

He'd expected her to cheer and declare her wisdom, but she looked at him seriously and said, "I'm broker than the Weasleys, I think."

"The important thing is that you don't act like a Weasley," Draco pointed out, and Pansy punched him on the arm, but it wasn't hard.

After that, Draco and Pansy were best friends forever, the kind who knew everything about one another.


	9. Has-been Headmaster

Draco didn't say a word the whole train ride back to Hogwarts. Pansy didn't try to get him to talk and told Crabbe and Goyle to kick anyone who tried to bother them in the privates. Draco liked to think that she now understood everything he was having to grieve.

Classes continued on the same, the dragon was surprisingly silent, and Harry Potter was still breathing to ruin Draco's life. Yet things were not as bad this time, and he had an image of his perfectly made bed waiting to be rumpled by his return steady in the back of his mind.

He also had his pointe slippers with him which he stood in for ten minutes each day, since he didn't have enough space to twirl, and he had Pansy, who helped Draco stretch his knees to his forehead, since he didn't have enough space to do it on the floor.

Before break, Draco hadn't had much time to work on Snape's latest poem, what with the stress of learning Occlumency and all. On the first day of Library Study, Draco stayed after to look over it again. He hadn't even remembered it until he'd reached in the pocket of his school robes earlier that day and felt the small piece of parchment inside. Draco had to enlarge it to make out what the words said.

My color is red like blood

I taste like what grows out of mud

Once I am complete

Is known the next feat

Scales and snails

Give no tales

So do I?

Draco saw Granger coming his way and fled, but later that night in bed he thought about it and the next morning he had an idea. Maybe Snape wrote a poem about the potion which it came attached to . . ? Draco had to search for quite awhile, but he finally found the potion in the third drawer of his wardrobe, still glowing green. It wasn't until after he'd located the item did Draco distinctly remember putting it there. This time he stashed it safely with the supply of extra potions he'd started keeping under his bed. He always had three calming droughts and two thoughtfulness potions left over of the monthly supply Snape gave him, and now that Draco was making his own potions he figured he needed somewhere to put them until his return to the manor.

Draco was surprised to find that his magic was once again completely under his control. However, said surprise didn't hinder his excitement at all - he was flicking his wand every time he had a chance. Still, he was very suspicious of everyone, but chose to blame the dragon and ignore the problem for as long as he could. Unfortunately, it was shortly later confronted by the last person Draco ever thought would care.

Professor Dumbledore sent an elf to fetch Draco late one night, a few weeks after break. Draco was already tucked away in bed and had to get up and back into his robes all by himself, though he didn't bother with the uniform underneath. When Draco finally reached the Headmaster's office, after demanding that the shy house elf escort him the whole way, Dumbledore treated him pleasantly and offered him strange candies like Lemon Drops, which Draco outright refused. Draco was sure he was seconds away from being assassinated by the large flaming phoenix perched high behind Dumbledore's desk who looked as if she was barely restraining herself from picking out Draco's eyeballs and feasting on them.

"Draco," the old wizard said, finally seeming to sense that Draco was never going to be the one to talk first. Draco focused on keeping his thoughts neutral.

"You are much like your mother, I see," Dumbledore offered and Draco just blinked at him. Dumbledore's eyes twinkled and he smiled strangely as he next spoke, "this is a good thing. Your mother has a very good reason to be wary of me, much different than your father's reasons, I'm sure."

Draco didn't know what to say. Hidden in the back of his mind-dungeons, he kept reminding himself of his mother's passage about Dumbledore in his journal. Nobody, Draco, she'd wrote, smiles sincerely at a Malfoy, unless they are in love or stupid . . . or both.

Dumbledore chuckled. "Are you shy, Draco? Or is something the matter?"

Draco did not think the Headmaster was in love with him, but nor did he think the wizard stupid in any sense of the word, which could only mean one thing. Dumbledore wasn't being sincere.

"I am not shy, sir." Draco couldn't help but scowl at his own revelation and use of the word sir, which had flown out of his mouth too easily for never remembering using it a day in his life. "I don't know you at all," he pointed out a bit snappily.

"Ah, yes," the wizard exclaimed, unconcerned seeming. "I always am getting ahead of myself. I believe it annoys your godfather to no end."

"Snape," Draco said slowly, like he was unsure. Though he could easily see how Severus Snape would very much hate that.

"The one and only," Dumbledore confirmed. Again, Draco had no clue what to say so he waited patiently and glared at his own toes until Dumbledore felt the need to explain himself. "I know a lot of things about you, Draco, and I think your father has let you believe that our stories are less connected than they truly are. I know that I can help you with something important to you, and I will help you. All you have to do in return is listen."

"Listen . . . to you?" asked Draco, making sure he had things right.

Eyes still twinkling, Dumbledore nodded.

"Because that isn't what every dark wizard and wicked witch would say."

The words had escaped his mouth before Draco could have stopped him, but Dumbledore only chuckled. Draco scowled. He hated being mocked. This was worse than the fool thinking Draco rude. Draco made to right his wrong but Dumbledore spoke again before he could even open his mouth.

"Your godfather told me that you enjoyed reading?" inquired Dumbledore.

"Some things," Draco said through gritted teeth. He just wanted to go to bed. He had no clue if he was about to be punished or what. "Can you just tell me what you mean, sir?" Draco asked quickly.

"You have noticed an increase in your power since you've been here at Hogwarts-only at Hogwarts-have you not? Perhaps it even began on the train. I can help you wield such power."

"Why should I trust you instead of my father?"

"I am here, your father is not."

"Snape's here, I could tell him," Draco pointed out.

"Would you rather Professor Snape be the one to help you, Draco? I thought I would be the one best suited for the job, but I'm sure your godfather may be inclined."

"What do you want from me?"

"Tonight I just wish to show you something."

Draco stayed quiet and let the wizard talk. He told Draco about wandless magic and how to conserve magic when spells required very little of it. He told Draco that power was never something one should show off unless they wanted to intimidate enemies, or if they just had too much lying around. He showed Draco how to stabilize himself and his magic from within. Draco learned that healing spells usually required the most amount of magic, and they were always a sure way to expend some bottled up magic. Draco learned a new method to summon things, and two different versions of both the Revealing and Banishing Charms.

Draco was amazed with his own ability. He didn't understand how he could screw up a simple hair charm, yet do all these advanced spells perfectly on his first or second try.

Dumbledore didn't tell Draco why he was helping him or why Draco was suddenly much more powerful, but by the time Draco fell asleep he wasn't thinking about that and the Headmaster was looking like a much better ally.

The days after that passed quickly, and Draco found himself in a loop of studying, cursing Potter's name in the common room, and wondering when Dumbledore would call him up to his office next. Of course, since Draco was least expecting it, he got a call from somebody else.

"Draco . . . Draco," said a deep voice, seemingly from right next to his ear, and Draco startled out of bed. A raspy chuckle followed him. "Come to the tower, Draco," the voice continued and Draco groaned.

"Can't you come to me for once?" hissed Draco, uselessly. There was no reply, just a leftover pull calling him toward the tower, so Draco huffed and began to tear off his night clothes as he moved to knock on Linky's door. She appeared with a barely there crack a second later-which told Draco that it was late enough to be up anyway-and instantly started to gather a pair of all black robes for him to wear since it was the weekend.

"The dragon, master Draco?" asked Linky once Draco was dressed, yawning, and gripping her hand. He nodded wordlessly and they were off with a soft crack.

"Young warlock," the dragon greeted Draco with a smirk. "How nice of you to join me."

"Yes, nice," Draco agreed, staring down at his bare feet, trying to remember why he hadn't worn shoes. "Why can't you visit me again?"

"Would you really want me to appear on your walls whenever I please?"

"Merlin, no," Draco admitted.

"That's that then." The dragon looked rather sour and Draco noted this must be a sore subject for some reason.

"Suppose," Draco yawned again.

"I have a proposal for you, young warlock," the dragon began and Draco groaned.

"What is it with people-or creatures-trying to play me like some kind of fool?" hissed Draco, suddenly much more awake.

The dragon merely arched an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, but if you haven't noticed I actually do not know everything that goes on in your life at every point in time, so if you are aiming for a certain response here, I'm afraid you will have to do some more explaining."

"Are you in cahoots with Dumbledore, then?" Draco sneered. "What is it you two want from me? My sanity?"

The dragon froze, and for a second Draco thought that he'd actually put the creature in his place, but then he spoke again, his voice hard and cool and definite.

"Hear me now, young warlock, I will never sink low enough to partner myself with a wizard like your current Headmaster. If Dumbledore has deceived you, it was his own doing. I can tell you now . . . your path is not one with the old batty wizard, if you trust one thing I say, trust this."

"At least he has something to offer me," Draco cried. "Spells. Wisdom. All you have given me is pain!"

As soon as the words had left his mouth Draco wished that he could take them back.

The dragon, however, looked violent suddenly, not smug, and Draco briefly thought he was about to die and found himself grabbing for Linky's hand.

"I do not know what the wizard thinks he's doing, but only fools play with fate, young warlock. I thought as a Slytherin you would understand that knowledge is not power . . . for knowledge is nothing without choices made," the dragon hissed at Draco and faded back into the wall with some angry crunching noises.

Draco sighed.


	10. Merlin's Boots

Draco was running, half indignant and half adrenalized, toward the tower. The dragon was already waiting for him when Draco burst in. He tried to speak but suddenly his lungs felt like they were on fire and he ended up gasping and stuttering instead.

"Ah, young warlock," the dragon smiled down at Draco wickedly. "I knew you would break soon enough."

"Something's going on," Draco offered by way of greeting, trying to take long breaths through his nose.

"Isn't it always."

Draco glared at the dragon. This was exactly why Draco had avoided the dragon for the past three weeks. In fact, Draco had pretty much ignored everything the dragon had ever said and tried to do the exact opposite whenever he could. In a fit of rage, Draco had consulted a page his father wrote in the "Dealing With Gryffindors" chapter of Draco's journal and used the Leg-Lock jinx on Harry Potter. He'd used it on a few of the other Gryffindors before, like Neville Longbottom, when he'd needed a laugh, but told himself he wouldn't start pulling Potter's pigtails out of . . . anger or any other emotion. However, there was that stupid brain-to-mouth filter malfunction that Draco was constantly battling against.

Draco had been curious when he'd left the tower last time, and spent a lot of his time since then considering what the dragon said. His steady daydreaming instituted him as The Worst Listener and Pansy hadn't talked to him in two days, but Draco couldn't be bothered with her enough to say sorry.

He'd quickly come to a few realizations. There was something going on that he didn't know about. His parents and Dumbledore both seemed to be keeping a secret, but Draco couldn't be sure it was the same one. Although, something in his gut was telling him that it had to be. Next, he realized that this power Draco was learning from Dumbledore would mean very little if he, for some reason, could only do advanced magic at Hogwarts and, surely, the old wizard had to see this.

Dumbledore had called Draco to his office only one more time, and Draco went, but he told himself he would never trust the older wizard, even if he couldn't quite bring himself to turn down learning all that new magic. Though the dragon's parting words were making more and more sense to Draco as the days passed. This still didn't mean he should trust the dragon, Draco told himself, however, he'd realized the dragon hadn't ever asked him to really.

Instead of befriending Harry Potter like the dragon had wanted, Draco did what he did best and spied. Draco decided that getting the inside scope of the Boy Who Lived's life wouldn't be so bad, and it wasn't like spying on the three blindingly naive and golden Gryffindors was very hard work.

"With Potter," Draco spat finally at the dragon, starting on a rant about how he'd gotten the worse grass stains on his robes while spying on Potter in the giant oaf's hut. Of course, Draco may have gotten himself a bit caught by gasping at the wrong moment. He couldn't have helped it, he'd seen Potter with an illegal dragon and only had one sudden thought: I called it out!

"So being friends would be easier is what you're saying?" the dragon cut in and Draco ignored him and plowed on.

Draco explained all that he'd overheard, and tried not to show how worried he was that Potter thought his godfather was after the Sorcerer's Stone. The Boy Who Lived suspecting an Ex-Death Eater didn't bode well, Draco figured, even if he was sure Potter didn't know Snape had the Dark Mark. Draco was much smarter than Potter and he hadn't even known about the mark for years, only that his father and godfather had matching tattoos.

"There is something else . . . the giant is harboring an illegal dragon egg. I suppose that's a problem."

"And what do you plan to do about it?" the dragon asked.

"Why should I do anything!?" Draco thought of something and grinned. "Besides go straight to the Prophet?"

The dragon eyed him for a long moment. "I know what can stop anyone from using the stone, but, as it is, I am trapped here for the rest of eternity. Since you refuse to step up and accept your destiny I suppose I will have to present you with an offer which you cannot refuse."

Draco's eyes grew wide.

"I do not care how it is done," the dragon continued, "but once you accept my gift, you will be bound to help until the evil at play here has been stopped."

Draco gulped. "What would I have to do?"

"First I will tell you a story, young warlock . . ."

Draco listened intently as the dragon told a story about a boy who was quite like Draco himself, only he lived many, many years ago. The boy had a purpose much the same as Draco's own. He told Draco how this boy came to accept his destiny, and later became one of the most powerful and important wizards of all time. The wizard was so powerful, the dragon explained, that he was still walking amongst the world today.

Finally, Draco thought, they were getting to the good part. The dragon said there were many prized treasures hidden within Hogwarts that would satisfy Draco, but none like this particular wizard's first pair of boots. The wizard had given the boots to the dragon to look after, but the dragon was confident they wouldn't be missed for another thousand years or so. As long as Draco promised to take good care of them, he could borrow the boots for his lifetime. The dragon also heavily suggested accepting his destiny, something about two sides of the same coin and history repeating itself.

The dragon explained how the boots worked, and suddenly the thought of saving Potter didn't seem so terrible. If Draco was ever in trouble all he would have to do was think about another place to be and step, then he would be where he wanted to be. Long distances were shaky even for a master, the dragon warned, but Draco had already made up his mind.

Draco snuck about the castle even though he didn't have to because it was the middle of the day on a Saturday, and he located the stone which the dragon said the boots were hidden behind. It was just some random stone block on the wall in the dungeons, ten stones left of a portrait of Slytherin's oldest daughter and five up from the ground. Draco whispered the spell and the stone dissolved to reveal a pair of worn brown boots within. He did what the dragon said and put them on. They quickly morphed to fit his feet like his ballet slippers always had, only they seemed to magically repair themselves as well. He next tried out the crazy part, thought of the dragon's lair and stepped. The boots worked, and Draco found himself under the dragon, blinking up at the smug creature.

The dragon reminded Draco that he must uphold his end of the bargain, and told Draco how to find a staff in which would aid him in his task. It was rather short and entwined by two silver serpents. A friend of the dragon's hid the staff, just as the boots had been, though the staff would be considerably harder for Draco to obtain, he explained. However, he also said that Draco was happy to use it afterward for his own personal gain so it might just be worth it. All he had to do was go into the Forbidden Forest and "step" his way toward the item. However, Draco was not liking the idea of entering the forest alone.

When Draco finally returned to his tiny chambers after a long day of popping out of nowhere and scaring first year Hufflepuffs, he paused in front of the mirror and eyed his new boots. When he looked up, he was startled to find his mirror-image staring at him in pure adoration, its eyes were twinkling with happiness.

"Oh, bravo," it sing-songed. "Bravo!"

Draco decided he'd made the right decision and began to plan.


	11. The Final Plan of First Year

It was official, Draco thought as Professor Mcgonagall hauled him off by his ear.

Draco was the worst strategist there ever was.

And to think he'd even waited a week for the perfect opportunity. Draco knew when and where Potter had illegal dragon business, and had planned to get caught out late with the Terrible Haired Trio, which, if what Severus wrote in his "Loony Man In Charge" chapter could be trusted, would quite possibly result in one big happy quintet consisting of himself, three Gryffindors, and one giant gamekeeper trampling around the Forbidden Forest together.

Draco had quite liked those odds, considering he would have to be entering the forest soon anyway or face the dragon's wrath.

Now, lonesome dragged by his smelly professor, Draco couldn't understand what had gone wrong, but somehow he had gotten captured all by himself.

Snape was rather angry, Draco figured, but Draco was much too angry at the time to register much beyond himself. Snape heartlessly gave Draco a detention and it felt like fate. Draco suspected that the dragon was laughing at him from the tower.

So, it was to be Draco and the giant alone on this quest. He supposed one was better than none.

Draco spent the next week studying, making up with Pansy, and worrying about his detention, half hoping it would take place in the forest and half hoping it wouldn't. He wore his new boots every day, both for practice and so he could remember that they were going to be there for him, always. Pansy easily forgave him . . . after all, Linky was better with beauty charms than the entire female Slytherin body combined. The witch would be a fool not to forgive him, and she had told Draco as much.

When Potter, Granger, and Longbottom showed up at his detention Draco was sure that the dragon was laughing at him from up in his lair.

Draco inwardly readied himself for the stage, and plastered a sneer across his face as the others approached.

Oh, destiny was maybe a bit fun, Draco decided.

Many highs and lows later, Draco found himself paired off with Potter, having nearly scared Longbottom to death with a little practice in his boots. Easily deciding that Potter was the worst company ever, Draco insulted the boy while slowly leading him closer to where the dragon's magic was pulling.

When he felt the pull abruptly end, Draco froze and Potter seemed to freeze with him for no reason that Draco could understand. "What is it?" Potter asked him quietly.

Before Draco could answer another wizard appeared out of nowhere. He was tall, lanky, and dark-haired, wearing what Draco was pretty sure was muggle attire. He looked to be about twenty. His expression was blank, except for a raised eyebrow, and his pale skin made him look ghostly.

"Which one of you is looking for the staff, huh?" the wizard asked them. Draco didn't say a word.

"Who are you?" Potter was glaring at the wizard.

"Um . . . none of your concern?" the wizard drawled, and turned toward Draco completely. "It's you, then?" he asked.

Draco could only nod. He shot a nervous glance at Potter, but the other boy just looked angry and confused.

"Look . . ." the wizard sighed. "This whole gig? Keeper of the staff? It wasn't originally mine . . . let's just say it was left to me in a will of sorts. Now . . . the one before me, he was much better at this whole mysterious, all-knowing, popping-out-of-nowhere role . . . he was also kind of soft, surprisingly, and most-likely would have been a Hufflepuff. I'm not hating on you, I'm not. I was a Slytherin, too, okay? I'm just being straight with you, blondie, the color on your robes tells me all I need to know. There's a sort of test one must pass in order to call the staff out of hiding when its original keeper passes on . . . one that measures the purity of a heart."

"Right . . ." Draco couldn't help but snort. "Because the boy who murdered somebody at age one is more pure than I am."

Potter began to growl.

"Clearly," the wizard spoke on, "you two have some issues, but since I'm in sort of a . . . pickle, as they say, I may be willing to cut a deal with you."

Draco, having good luck with his recent dealings, listened eagerly as the wizard continued.

"The warlock before me, the original owner of the staff, was actually a keeper of the unicorns if you can believe it. He just passed away fifty years ago and I've been in charge ever since. Only problem is . . . I haven't been able to bring the staff out of hiding until I find someone who can pass the test. Obviously, I am not as pure at heart as my predecessor believed me to be, and without the staff I cannot reincarnate any of the unicorn souls. Soon there will be none left in this forest."

Draco was feeling decidedly tricked. The dragon had some nerve, sending him out to help other wayward do-gooders.

"If you can find someone to pass the test . . . I will let you use the staff whenever you need it."

Draco was feeling better already. He also was through lying to himself.

"Fine, if anyone can pass this test, it'll be our very own golden boy: Harry Potter."

While the wizard looked relieved, Potter looked livid.

"I can't," he hissed. "Malfoy, what are you playing at?"

"Oh okay, Potter," Malfoy drawled, gesturing for Potter to drop it. "We won't make you do anything. I'll do it."

As Potter turned to see what the other wizard thought of this, Draco frantically shook his head, pointed at Potter, and then held a finger to his lips. When Potter looked back toward Draco, he was already smiling charmingly again, and the other wizard was winking at him over Potter's shoulder.

"Great, you guys can call me Em." The wizard smiled. "I'll see you on the other side."

They were left alone again, and Potter would not stop asking questions, so Draco ignored him and went back to insulting the other boy.

"You are clearly a coward, Potter," Draco sneered, startling when the boy finally took his bait after what had seemed like an hour of useless insults.

"I'm not a bloody coward, Malfoy!" Potter hissed, stopping dead in his tracks.

"You won't do anything I say though?" Draco raised an eyebrow, hoping Potter would be as dense as an eight-year-old Zabini, and started scanning the area for any worm-like insects.

"You . . . you mean like . . . like truth or dare?" Potter asked, his huge eyes were suddenly very round. He started to walk again and Draco followed.

"Excuse me?" Draco coughed, not wanting to admit he hadn't a clue what Potter was talking about.

"Oh, I forgot . . ." Potter paused and pushed his glassed up the bridge of his nose. "It's a . . . a game my cousin and his friends used to play."

"But not you?" Draco questioned, still not sure what to say.

Potter frowned. Draco tried again.

"Could enemies play this as well, Potter? Or is it too friendly of a game?"

Potter gulped. "It would be stupid . . ."

"But are you scared, is the question?"

Slowly, the other boy shook his head, no, he wasn't scared.

"Well, then, are you going to explain the rules sometime today, Potter, or . . ?"

Potter scowled, but explained. Afterward, Draco made it clear that he would lie if Potter asked him about Em or the staff, and told the other boy that he was going first. Potter picked dare. Draco made him lick tree moss, then lied when Potter asked him what his most embarrassing moment was. Draco felt some guilt, but wasn't about to tell Potter that his most embarrassing moment was a tie between when they'd first met in Madam Malkin's, the train incident, and their first-flying-lesson-which-Draco-still-wasn't-thinking-about. Potter actually ate a beetle, then asked Draco if he'd ever hugged anyone.

Draco snorted, seeing no reason to lie this time. "I don't like touching other people, Potter." He grinned. "Well, except a select few," he added, before he could stop himself.

"That's what I asked anyway," Potter growled, still looking sour about having to munch that bug.

"My father, my godfather, my great aunt, Pansy . . . and Cass. That is all, I think."

"Not your mum?"

"Oh yes, of course." Draco nodded.

"Who's Cass?" Potter asked next.

Draco tsked, his mind suddenly filled with inappropriate images of Cass' dark hair sweaty and stuck to his forehead. "It isn't your turn, Potter," he said and proceeded to make the boy touch a giant slug before answering his question.

"He's a boy that I like," Draco lied, waiting for Potter's reaction. He definitely felt guilty this time, but couldn't help the farce. He hated Potter so much that it made him want to do stupid things.

"So he's your friend at home?" If anything Potter looked jealous for some reason.

"No," Draco started, which wasn't technically a lie, though the next words out of his mouth were. "He's my lover."

"Your what?"

"My older, French lover . . . he's gorgeous."

"You mean what, exactly?" Potter squeaked.

Draco knew he should just end it all right there, and leave Potter wondering, but he really, really didn't want to.

"I hug him," Draco explained, even though he knew his own second cousin didn't really count. "And kiss him . . . and do other secret things with him, Potter."

Potter seemed to have something stuck in his giant eyeball suddenly.

"Are you okay?" Draco asked the blinking boy.

"Er-fi-fine," stuttered Potter, not looking fine at all.

"Are you . . . are you actually scared, Potter?" Draco couldn't help but laugh. "Are you telling me you can eat a beetle, but are scared at the thought of me kissing someone?"

"I'm not . . ."

"I bet you won't kiss me, then," sneered Draco, after only a moment of thought, he added, "you're much too scared. I know it."

Draco bit his lip instinctively. Of course, that had been a ridiculous idea. Harry Potter wasn't really that stupid. He wasn't going to just kiss Draco because Draco baited him to it. Who did that sort of thing? Draco absently wondered, but he couldn't think over the quick pounding of his heart. This was terrible feeling! What in the hell was Draco even doing? A nervous gulp told him that his mouth had gone dry and Potter still stared at him, unmoving and tense like.

Finally, Harry took a step forward and turned up his chin. "I am not scared," he stated in a tone that suggested even the thought of being scared was disgusting.

"Er . . . you are too?" Draco said, unsure. Then, he added in a firmer tone, "of course you are, Potter, you're scared."

Draco had no clue if Potter was scared. All Draco knew was that he was scared himself. If Potter didn't kiss him, the other boy would have this over Draco for a long time and Draco hadn't a clue what his father would even do if someone told him Draco had taken things one step too far with the Boy Who Lived during a game of muggle truth or dare in the Forbidden Forest.

He'd probably send Draco to the dungeons for ten years. This went against everything his father had taught him! Once again, Draco wondered what he was doing. Draco would probably have to restart Hogwarts again at age twenty one.

If that was even possible and, yes, this was insanity.

Harry Potter still just stood there and stared at Draco and Draco really needed Potter to just move because if Potter didn't, Draco would. He really would. Why he would Draco didn't have a clue himself, but he did know that he was, for some insane reason, seconds away from kissing Potter. His father's words were the only thing holding him back and, even then, he found himself leaning forward.

Potter stopped him with a hard shove, but Draco quickly realized Potter hadn't even registered Draco's failed attempt when he hissed, "I'm not scared to kiss a Slytherin."

"How about a Malfoy," sniffed Draco, and seriously what was Draco's mouth even doing anymore? Why couldn't he just shut up?!

"I'm not," growled Potter, as he shoved Draco back into a tree that Draco was sure hadn't been there before.

Then they were kissing and something deep inside Draco's subconscious burst open and a warm feeling filled his gut, painting his spine with ice at the same time. Their noses clashed and Draco tasted blood and sweat and fire, not with his tongue but with his breath.

Draco saw himself happy and smiling and kissing Cass on the mouth. He saw himself confessing to Pansy that he knew what she meant about him liking other boys. He saw his and Potter's reflection together in the mirror, faces touching, arms around each other.

Draco gasped and pushed Potter away, he was still glaring and Draco could only blink back at him.

Lastly, a lone vivid image of a dark closet and a black-haired boy with eyes as big as the house elves and as green as his Slytherin tie popped into Draco's mind.

Draco couldn't believe it. His one good dream in nights full of nightmares, and this meant . . . that . . .

Draco had a crush on Harry Potter.

Potter.

"Obliviate!" hissed Draco, belatedly realizing he'd even drawn his wand on the other boy.

Potter stared blankly back at him and Draco could only think three words over and over.

Worst. Strategist. Ever.


	12. Will of the Stars

Suddenly it hit Draco that at least Cass would be proud of him for wiping the memory of the Boy Who Lived, and he felt the slightest bit better. However, this would only happen if Draco wasn't, you know, rotting away in Azkaban for his horrid crime.

The Malfoy dungeons seemed much more homey all of the sudden.

Potter's eyes widened in horror, focused on something over Draco's shoulder. Draco froze and slowly turned to see a hooded figure emerge from the bushes a ways off and start humping on a unicorn. And wasn't that just perfect? Having one's first real kiss right next to a dead lump of bleeding unicorn and a perverted vampire. It was at these thoughts that Draco let out a manly scream and bolted, Fang hot on his heels like a good boy, but Potter . . . not so much. Draco's lumos went out when he was a good fifty paces away and he froze, not sure what to do. Next to him, Fang whined, and Draco tried to recast the spell and ball of blinding light burst from the tip of his wand. Draco tried to use what Dumbledore had taught about conserving magic, but still couldn't get the lumos to decrease in strength. The frantic beating of his heart told Draco that the dark would be better for a while.

The dark consumed him once more and Draco felt the tears coming. He was dead. Potter was going to die and Draco was too scared to save him, and then the dragon was going to kill Draco for letting Potter die. Draco should have never taken the deal.

This was, of course, when Draco remembered his amazing boots. This was also when he realized his lungs were on fire. Draco raised his arms above his head and focused on breathing. Surely death by mysterious stone dragon was more dignified than death by fifty yard dash.

"Pssst," said a gruff voice. "You there."

"Me?" asked Draco, startled, as he looked all around the moonlight path.

"Yes, you," a figure said, popping out from some brush. It was a little man with furry, white goat legs and small horns sticking out of his black hair . . . a faun, Draco realized belatedly.

"You're . . . you . . . are . . . wow," Draco breathed, dropping to his knees so he could get a better look. He had never seen anything more beautiful in his life.

The faun blushed, his pale skin turning darker under the moonlight, and even the sticks and leaves haphazardly poking from his thick tufts couldn't deter Draco from his beauty.

"It is an honor to meet you, one who calls himself Roderick," the faun said and bowed. "The centaurs have talked many nights of your great future."

"Really?" Draco asked, eyes narrowed. "Because I'm Draco. Draco Malfoy."

"As I am both Gabe and Pan, and the great Emrys is nothing but Merlin with a beard," he smiled warmly as he spoke, but Draco didn't get it.

"Who are you?"

"I am in service to the centaurs for my wrongdoings," the faun paused and checked over his shoulder, "and now I must leave you, but we will meet again in the future, young Roderick, I am sure of this."

With a rustle, he disappeared back into the brush and Draco was left alone once more, with problems up to his neck. Deciding that facing the dragon's wrath was better than facing the ministry's, Draco stayed put, but was very concerned to see a very alive Potter emerging with the rest of the group when they finally found Fang and him. However, the other boy showed no indication that anything was amiss.

Which left Draco with only one problem: getting Potter to pass a test he didn't even know about . . . that Draco hardly knew a thing about.

The next morning, Draco called a meeting in his tiny chambers after breakfast. It would be the first time Crabbe and Goyle actually saw the inside of Draco's quarters, because he couldn't risk anyone overhearing their conversation. Pansy arrived first and made herself comfortable on his bed. Draco was pleased when Crabbe and Goyle entered and took their places on either side of her without touching anything. Draco paced his small grounds as he explained what was going on . . . well, some of what was going on.

"I owe someone a favor that I intend to carry through. Crabbe and Goyle, I need you two on your best these next few days. Potter doesn't take a walk without me knowing, understand?"

Crabbe nodded enthusiastically while Goyle did so seriously.

"What does Potter have to do with things?" Pansy asked.

"It's a long story, Pans," Draco sighed. "Can you please just trust me on this one?"

"Trust you?" Pansy smiled. "Never."

The next day when he was in the Library studying for exams, Pansy's voice in his ear out of nowhere nearly gave him a heart attack.

"Potter's on the move."

Draco's eyes snapped up and followed the other boy out of the Library. Potter seemed to be glowering at something. Draco followed his line of sight and found a Ravenclaw boy that he had never seen before. Draco trailed behind them.

When they were finally alone in the hallway, Potter caught up to the boy and stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"I saw you take that book," Potter accused and Draco rolled his eyes, hardly wanting to watch Potter preach at the kid.

"I-I-I'm sorry," the kid sobbed. "I just-I have to get a good grade! I need it! You can't tell on me! My father would kill me!"

"You aren't allowed those books for a reason."

"I know, I know! But I just have to get the best grade in the whole class or he won't be proud of me!"

"Fine," Potter said, and Draco couldn't help but gape. "Keep the book, but don't get yourself caught."

Then he was walking away. Draco was even more stunned when the Ravenclaw boy turned, looked right at him in his hiding spot, and threw Draco a wink before vanishing.

"Well," said a voice right next to his ear and for a second time Draco startled around, this time to find Em right behind him. "It looks like your boy has proved himself to be truly kind at heart. How lovely."

"No." Draco had to disagree. "But can I get the staff now?"

"I wish. Kindness is not all it takes," Em chuckled and then he, too, was vanishing.

Draco groaned.

It was three days later, when Draco was on Potter duty alone, that the next task happened. Draco had followed Potter from the Great Hall after dinner. He went up to what Draco had previously assumed to be the Gryffindor tower. Draco hid in a nook near the bottom of the steps, not wanting to climb a million just to reach a scowling fat lady again. Eventually, Potter came back down alone. He did that sometimes, Draco had noticed, just ran off when nobody had their eye on him. Well, Draco always had his eye on Potter . . .

Oh gods, no, no, no . . . Draco never had his eye on Potter, not ever.

Or . . . he wouldn't have them on Potter, right after these stupid tasks were completed.

Draco kept following the other boy, nevertheless. They ended up on the opposite side of the castle before Potter suddenly froze, like he had heard something. Potter shuffled closer to a classroom door and leaned in, clearly listening intently to something on the other side. Draco was too far away to hear anything, but before he could try and relocate Potter got a savage look in his eye and yanked the door open, blazing as he tore through the threshold. Draco tip-toed over and peeked inside. Potter was shouting at the same Ravenclaw boy from the first task. An older Ravenclaw girl ran out of the room and didn't even spare Draco a glance.

"You're a thief!" Potter accused.

"Wasn't that obvious when you caught me stealing a book?"

"I thought you said that you just needed a good grade," Potter hissed and yanked some parchments out of the boy's hand and began to walk away. "You're so lucky I have bigger problems to deal with right now."

"You really didn't believe that story about my father did you?" the boy asked next.

Potter stopped walking and turned around. "What kind of person lies about their own father to make a few galleons?"

The boy began to grin and shrugged his shoulders, unconcerned. Potter grew more tense. Even from behind, Draco couldn't help but notice how wound up his enemy had become, like Crabbe's kneazle: alert and ready to attack. Draco figured this was not a well boding sign.

"Well . . ." the Ravenclaw started. "I figured it'd be something a boy like you would fall for. Who better to fall for some pathetic sob story about family than Harry Potter, the boy who murdered his own."

The parchments scattered about the classroom and Potter charged toward the boy, slamming him against the wall. Potter was much smaller, but that didn't seem to matter. "Nobody thinks that anymore," Potter growled. "Nobody ever really did."

"Oh, but they do," the boy drawled. "They are all just too scared to say it to you. Scared you might do them off next."

"No," Potter sounded pained as he slammed the boy back against the wall again.

The boy only laughed and looked Potter right in the eye. "Freak," he said, and Potter snapped, rearing back and punching the other boy. He vanished and Potter was left blinking, then suddenly he turned and ran away. Draco barely had time to think of his tiny chambers and step before Potter was at the doorway, and he found himself in his room. Em was waiting there, leaning against Draco's wardrobe.

"Well, that went terribly . . ." he drawled.

"What did you expect to happen?" hissed Draco.

"Ideally, he would have ignored my taunts and walked away."

"Obviously," Draco huffed. "Look . . . can't you like, give him another chance or something? A different test?"

"I . . ." Em's eyes widened and he trailed off. "Well, once . . . there was something else - that infuriating maze and bloody goblet of wine laced with Draught of the Living Death." Em seemed to be muttering only to himself, but Draco knew how important a person's inward ramblings could be, having the mother he did, and wisely kept quiet. "However, I'm not too sure how Anhora actually pulled it off. I'll have to go have myself a chat with Kilgharrah. How unfortunate."

"Who and who?" Draco asked when it was clear the wizard was finished.

"My predecessor, Anhora, and . . . er . . . Kilgharrah, you know, great stone dragon guy?"

Draco raised a brow, both at the implication and Em's sudden lack of eloquence. "So you do know him," he drawled.

"Knew him when he still had scales." Em smiled. "I can deal with his stubborn arse. I'll keep trying, kid. I promise."

Draco forced himself to focus on studying for his exams after that. The dragon was silent, and that was a small comfort. Once, when he was a bit early for Library Study, Draco found Hermione Granger already there, her nose stuck in a tome, and he successfully cast that spell he'd tried all those months ago at the manor. Draco managed to copy each and every page of Granger's notes which, in his opinion, only further guaranteed his success.

As he got more used to wearing his special boots, Draco realized how lucky he was. They were very powerful, even if they were a clashing shade of brown. It was like they were connected to both his mind and his surroundings. Even when Draco was in a rush, they would put him exactly where he needed to be. Sometimes the boots even seemed to relocate Draco to a more opportune area, if the one he'd been thinking about was occupied or something.

Draco could almost forget about all his problems - that was how amazing the boots were turning out to be. Draco thought that he was finally truly understanding what his father had meant by "quality over quantity." In final preparation for exams, Draco procrastinated greatly by brewing five perfect Forgetfulness potions on his last Saturday lesson with Snape before them, and his godfather let him keep his work. Draco stashed them in one of the boxes under his bed with all the other extra potions he'd acquired over the course of the year in it. Draco's mother had been sending Draco presents all year, and Draco couldn't find it in him to throw away any of the boxes. Other than the extra potions, exams ended up a bore, and Draco was mostly peeved to have studied more than he'd needed to. Damn Granger and her ridiculously thorough note-taking. There was one mudblood that Draco would never copy off of again. He was thinking next year he'd try the Ravenclaw girl who had a twin . . . Patil, or something like that.

Draco was sulking about this after his History of Magic exam when he suddenly realized he'd lost Potter and his crew. Draco's Potter-awareness was growing just as second nature to him as his boots were and he hadn't lost the other boy in what seemed like days. Draco frowned and thought back over the past few weeks and figured Potter would most-likely be at the giant's hut.

He was more than a little disturbed when he was right, and found Potter there having a conversation, taking no precautions to shield any of their clearly classified information.

Draco stepped away from the hut as the others left and ended up in a hidden alcove near Gryffindor tower, figuring he would catch Potter on his way up. As he stood there alone, he felt the anxiety he'd managed to bury under exams come back in full force. Draco was sure Potter was about to do something stupid. Draco tried to take comfort in the fact that the dragon was silent but, for once, the silence in his head was even worse.

It was deafening.

Draco blinked and felt pain. He looked down to find he'd nearly scratched his own arm raw and cringed before he decided that pacing was surely better than savaging one's own skin off. Draco let his mind calm to thoughts of his mother, who he was maybe a little more alike than he'd ever realized.

Draco did end up losing Potter to the Gryffindor common room again and was surprised when the other boy didn't come back out after an hour or so for one of his lonesome sulks. A bit after this Draco was startled by the dragon's call. Draco followed the pull and felt sicker and sicker as it led him toward the third floor corridor. Draco found "Fluffy's" door ajar and just knew Potter had somehow managed to sneak by him and do something extremely unwise.

Draco gulped before gliding into the room with his wand out, he was surprised to find the vicious beast he'd heard Potter describe earlier curled up snoozing already, though Draco magically stepped to the next door just in case. Draco pinched his nose and tried not to smell the devilsnare burnt into paralysis as he stepped to the next door. Draco then paused as he heard noise, realizing he had caught up with Potter, and Weasley and Granger, if the voices were anything to go by. Draco wondered how they had all managed to sneak by without him seeing earlier, but was soon pulled from thought when he realized the trio were moving on.

Draco realized how much danger he was truly in when he watched Weasley get trampled by some bloody chess pieces. Though the realization only made Draco happier to have his boots, and if he left Potter to die, the dragon, at the very least, would strip Draco of them. Draco stepped passed a nasty troll, rolled his eyes as he listened to Granger solve Snape's latest contribution to the world of poetry, and only paused as he watched Potter walk through the burning threshold.

Draco was pretty sure the boots would let him step through without a potion, but nearly peed himself as he tried it. After checking over his body and finding himself intact, Draco hurried to a new hiding space when he realized Professor Quirrell was in the room, facing Draco's way. He was pretty sure he hadn't been spotted, but slinked off behind a pillar and didn't dare move again.

Em suddenly distracted Draco as he appeared on the other side of the room, quiet as a mouse, and held a finger to his lips before disappearing once more. Draco watched and tried to follow the conversation, but he grew nervous as nothing happened. Potter either didn't know where the Sorcerer's Stone was or he refused to tell the dark bloody lord, and Draco watched in horror as Quirrell then came after Potter.

It all had began so fast.

Draco almost missed the golden air that had started to pulse right behind Potter, but when a staff popped into existence, Draco realized what was happening. He accioed the staff to him and pointed it at Quirrell and Potter's forms - just wishing that Potter would live.

Draco heard screams and stepped.


	13. Potter

Draco stepped on to the Quidditch pitch, the grass was green and the sky was gold. Draco would only play Quidditch with his father when the sky was gold. His father was at Hogwarts. His parents were the only two in the purple stands. His father kept trying to kiss his mother, but her neck seemed strangely long today and she dodged them all while clapping quietly. No one could hear her. His father went back to checking his muggle wristwatch and his mother seemed to forget about Draco, letting Snape distract her with all his pretty flowers.

Gryffindors were lined up across from Draco and his toes were chilly. Madam Hooch taught them the basics and Draco was mad that he was having to relearn things even the mudblood Granger seemed to find trivial information. But then he looked at Potter. He had on Cass' new robes, the ones trimmed in blood red. Potter didn't know anything.

Potter didn't know about Quidditch. Pansy was there, insulting him.

"You're from two different worlds, Draco," she sneered. "Haven't I told you this before?"

Draco looked down and saw Longbottom's awful toad hopping off his own barefoot. Draco smashed it with his heel then began to cry as he saw the look on Longbottom's face.

"I didn't mean to," Draco heard himself whisper. "It worked every other time."

"Aw, Draco," Nott purred.

In the purple stands, his family arrived. Cass was wearing his new robes now. Draco's father lied to his great aunt, saying that Draco was top of his class.

"It's okay, Malfoy," Granger called. "I'll never really know, you know."

Draco had frog guts on his foot. Potter was naked now because Cass had on his blood trimmed robes. His private parts looked the same as Draco's looked. Ron Weasley was looking at Potter's privates as well. Cass transfigured the boy into a weasel and gave him to Alba as a present. The little witch was pleased.

Draco had Linky bring him Potter's clothes. Potter put on the baggy muggle clothes and sighed - blue jeans, white shirt, and giant green eyes, just as a proper Potter should be. Draco's own eyes burned - he liked the way Potter's collar bone showed.

"Malfoy be liking?" Potter asked.

"Yes, master Harry," Draco heard himself say.

"I love you," Harry hissed. "Now run."

Draco ran until he was at the edge of a cliff. Potter found him.

"Be giving it to me, Malfoy," Potter said. "I don't wants to be talking like this anymore."

Draco looked down and saw Longbottom's rememberall in his hand.

"Draco can't," Draco heard himself reply. "Master Harry won't be loving Draco anymore."

"Fine," Potter hissed and pulled them both off the cliff together.

Draco flinched awake to find Em's smiling face hovering over him and groaned.

"Hia," Em greeted. Draco groaned again.

Linky and Em had apparently made friends already and she brought Draco a glass of water. "What's happened?" Draco asked once his throat was cleared.

"What do you remember?" was Em's irritating answer.

"I . . . had the staff?" Draco started uncertainly, hoping the fuzzy images in his brain were all terrible lies. "And saved Harry Potter's life?"

Em nodded and smiled. "You were amazing!" he went on to praise. "I mean, I figured you would stay out of the way since I was already there and everything, but you accioed that sucker to you and bam! Little old Voldey didn't know what had hit him!"

Draco blinked at him for a moment and then smacked himself on the forehead and stayed like that until his eyes grew watery. "I hate my life," he moaned.

"What's wrong?" Em seemed startled. "Aren't you happy?"

Draco gasped and shook his head, no, he was not happy. Sure, now he had the boots but he had just defied Lord Voldemort to keep them.

"Look," Em sighed. "I'm going to tell you this because I think you should know. Kilgharrah is keeping secrets from you. He does that, which is why I made sure to give him the third degree for you, kid, and trust me when I say: you really, really do not want to know why right now, but you have truly done the right thing. Okay, Roderick?"

Draco had been glaring, but he couldn't help but gape at the title. He soon closed his eyes as Potter rushed to the front of his mind - cold red lips, wild mane, sharp body, and bloody huge eyes inches from his own.

"There are some things that should be left undiscovered," Draco admitted quietly.

"I'm glad you feel that way, kid." Em had walked over and now was ruffling Draco's hair. "Clean yourself up. The feast will be starting shortly. I have to go . . . can't be forgetting my own mission." He smiled sadly. "I will check up on you though, okay? Warlocks like us must stick together . . . and, Draco, because no one else is going to say this to you, thanks - for everything. One day you'll understand why it is better this way, in the wind, I promise."

"Wait! The feast! You're telling me it has been three days?! What even happened!?"

Em nodded sheepishly. "I-er-figured it best nobody found out about all this," he mumbled and then bloody shifted into Draco's smaller form. "Er. Yeah," he said in Draco's voice. "That Potter kid proved himself true of heart by trying to sacrifice himself like that. We got the staff. You did what you had to. End of story - except the backlash knocked you both out for three days. Happy break!"

Draco was left gaping. If Em hadn't already ruined his life and reputation, which seemed suspiciously intact then Potter, of course, had to ruin everything.

Draco had let himself grow excited for the House Cup, it was a nice pick-me-up after being unconscious for days. When Potter stole it, Draco made a vow then and there never to save Potter again, or even accept any of the dragons amazing gifts if it meant helping the other boy.

Surely Draco hated Potter again.

Surely.

Draco found his stuff was all packed when he returned to the dorms and smiled. At least he was going home for the entire summer. The smile fell off his face when he found an old iron lock box sitting on his bed. Draco read the note attached as Linky nervously wrung her hands in the corner.

 _I thought you would have solved this by now. Oh well. Take it to the manor, but do not let your father find it, for it will be your punishment not mine!_

Draco rolled his eyes and flopped on to his bed with a huff. He tossed the note up and burnt it to ashes with a simple spell.

"Well . . ." Draco chuckled, sitting back up a bit so he could look at Linky. "I suppose there is one thing I'll miss about this bloody castle—" and Linky smirked, vanishing the mess of ashes which had fluttered across the floor—"all the power that comes along with it."


End file.
